Through A Mirror Darkly
by Piccolo's Love Slave
Summary: Loosely based The Books of Great Alta by Jane Yolan and of course Dragonball Z. Vegeta and Piccolo are summoned into the mirror-world where they meet thier twin-selves! However, they are FEMALE!! Can things get any more confusing? Sure they can!!
1. Mirror, Mirror

She spent most of her time gazing through the mirror into that familiar yet odd world which lay just beyond. If only she could find a way though, she knew she could be happy, finally, and not the half-awake pitiful creature she'd always been.  
  
She gazed at herself, shoving her shock of pale, nearly white hair from her face, hair which she'd always been teased about. It tended to stand up in the most.unflattering way no matter how she tried to tame it back down.  
  
Her favorite book was in her lap. Alice Through The Looking Glass. She'd read and re-read it over and over so many times the pages were yellowed with age and cracked, the corners dog-earred lovingly. She sighed, if only she could be like Alice and find a way through.!  
  
Most of her friends and family had all ready found their way. They had all ready been called to their light sisters and brothers in the world beyond the mirror. She, with her odd hair and even odder tail, which she was swishing back and forth cat-like as she crouched in front of the glass, palms to the coolness, her dark eyes pleading. Please! Call me! I know you can hear me! Why haven't you called me yet?  
  
There were tears in her eyes as she laid her forehead to the glass and felt them seep down her cheeks.  
  
~*~*~  
  
The mist had cleared some and now he could see the surface of the lake. It's silvery waters shimmered and distorted his savage reflection, sending his own scowl back at him. He had just finished another spar with Goku and nursed his injuries with salt as he sat beside the water, fuming to himself.  
  
The idiot! He raged, his hands balled into fists, trembling at his sides, He thinks just because I let him beat me today that he can win every time! Kakkarot's getting too big for his breeches! As he raged he heard the object of his ire laughing good-naturedly from somewhere above and behind him.  
  
He was about to turn and answer that laughter with his fists and anger when something, like a tickle at the back of his mind, paused his actions. He stopped, his senses tingling.reaching.for something. Then he heard it.faintly.  
  
Call me!  
  
Vegeta scratched his head, running his hand through his dark locks, confused. Call me? He repeated, Call who? Bulma? He wasn't about to lower himself and call that she-devil of a woman. If she wanted him she would call him not the other way around! But, he had the distinct feeling that is was not Bulma whom he was being asked to call.  
  
He glanced down at his reflection and saw it waver, just for a moment, and he saw something.he wasn't sure what.someone who resembled him but who was not him. Before he could peer closer and unravel whatever it was he saw, it shimmered and became himself, scowling in puzzlement and anger, once more.  
  
He shrugged and flew off towards Goku's laughter, screaming; "Shut up before I shut you up, Kakkarot!"  
  
~*~*~  
  
She let out the breath she'd been holding, holding the book tightly in both hands so hard the pages began to cut into her skin. She was gazing through the mirror, misty and distance she could see a lake. The figure seated beside the water, gazing into it's depths, had only moments ago stood and flown off.  
  
But he'd heard me! He cried in her mind, overjoyed beyond belief, she'd been trying for years, ever since she'd grown to the right age, but nothing.untill now.tonight.She dropped the book and jumped to her feet, hugging herself. Soon! She cried to herself, soon.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"What is with you today, Veg-head?" Goku asked, after winning yet another match, "You seemed.distracted. It wasn't even a fair fight that time!"  
  
Vegeta sneered, it was true, his mind had been elsewhere, unable to fully focus on the fight. It was that blasted voice in his head! Where had it come from? He'd heard it several times since that night by the lake. Always it pleaded with him to call. Call? Who? How? He didn't bother with the telephone all that much.  
  
"I'm just concerned with your fighting tactics, Kakkarot." Vegeta answered, as the voice in his head forced it's way through once more, unbidden, This time with a new message.  
  
Reflection!  
  
He paused, the voice was so strong! Much stronger than it had been. He cried out and held his head in his hands. Kakkarot stopped too and looked at him in confusion and fear. "Vegeta? What's wrong?"  
  
"N-nothing!" Vegeta snapped, "Just go on back to the house."  
  
"Vegeta?"  
  
Reflection! Call me! Now!  
  
"Aargh!" Vegeta cried, the words, the strange voice like knives peircing his thoughts mercilessly, "Stop it! Please! Just stop.!"  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Child!" The stern voice broke her concentration and she looked up guiltily at her grandmother and her dark twin, they had chosen to stay in thisworld after they'd found each other. Sometimes such was the case. Her grandmother shook her head and her twin mirrored the action, as always, "Have you been trying to force your twin again, dear one?"  
  
"I am beyond ready to be called, Grandma!" She cried, choking back sobs, "Why can't he hear me?"  
  
"He does hear you, Granddaughter." The dark twin said, placing a hand upon the girl's shoulder, her twin repeating with her own hand on the girl's opposite shoulder, "A bit too much, I think. You must be careful. Remember, what is soft to us is unbearable to them. You must pace yourself else you could damage him and then where would you be?"  
  
"The same place I am now." The girl pouted, dejected, "Uncalled and lingering."  
  
"It will happen, dear one." She stroked her granddaughter's hair, "Don't force it. When it's to happen, it shall."  
  
~*~*~  
  
"What the hell is your problem?!" Bulma cried as she slammed the plate down in front of him, food spilling off it onto the floor, "Assuming, of course, that it's any different from normal!"  
  
Vegeta picked at the food, but he really had no apitite, hadn't, it seemed for several days now. He'd been even more testy with Bulma than normal. He glared at her and told her to mind her own business and went back to pushing the food around on his plate. He'd not heard the voice anymore demanding his attention and the hollow echo it had left in it's place felt.oddly.wrong. As if he missed it.  
  
"Let me know," Bulma was saying, her arms akimbo as she glared back at him, "When you finally manage to remove your head from your ass!"  
  
With that, she stormed away up to her room. Probably to work on her laptop or call someone on her cell and bitch about him, Vegeta thought. It seemed no matter what he did, he couldn't please her, so he might as well not even try at all. At least that moron Kakkarot hasn't been around lately to badger him about his fighting skills.or lack thereof.  
  
He'd really been in a funk lately. He got up, didn't bother taking the plate to the sink and headed up the stairs towards the bathroom. A shower sounded perfect about now. He felt grimy from his day of intense training and just the thought of the cleansing cool water on aching muscles and bones sounded beyond wonderful.  
  
Closing the door and locking it behind him, he quickly stripped off his clothes and shoved the shower curtain back. After testing the water to get the right tempature, he stepped in and the cool shock of water against his parched skin felt like a million tiny wet fingers caressing his tanned, beautifully muscled body.  
  
Reflection!  
  
He cried out and staggered, nearly slipping on the wet porcalin, catching himself against the soft-dish as the voice he though gone weeks ago pounded at his brain.  
  
"What do you mean?" He said aloud, softly, hardly unstanding his own words, "Who are you? What do you want?!"  
  
Call me!  
  
"Who are you?!" He cried, holding his head in one hand, the shower's water tattooing across his back and the other hand bracing himself against the wall, "What do you want with me?!"  
  
The mirror!  
  
The mirror? He echoed in his own mind-voice, what mirror? What does that mean? The bathroom mirror? He half turned and saw his reflection through the fog in the mirror over the sink. A sudden image of the stranger with his eyes gazing back up at him from the lake's surface flashed into his head.  
  
A sudden, brisk knock at the door interrupted his musings and his eyes left his face, however framed in the fog from the shower, towards the door.  
  
"Vegeta?" It was Bulma, of course, "What are you yelling about? Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah!" He called back, "I'm fine.I just.slipped."  
  
How lame! He thought, rolling his eyes. But she must have bought because she didn't say anything and he heard her footfalls as she walked away a moment later.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Damn!" She cried, pounding her fists on the floor, the mirror she faced showed her lack of sleep in hollowed eyes and gaunt cheeks, "Damn! Damn! Damn!" A moment longer.just one more moment and he would have known! She's seen the flicker of understanding flash in his eyes as he gazed at his own self through the misty bathroom mirror. If only.!  
  
If only that bitch hadn't inturrupted! She would have been there by now! She squeezed her eyes shut tight and forced back the tears. Her grandmother and her twin had told her not to force herself upon his will.but she couldn't just sit and wait and waste away while he did nothing! She had to make herself known to him! Somehow! Didn't she?  
  
It wasn't her fault if he was too dense to realize it was his own twin calling, was it? She had to make him see her.somehow.didn't she?  
  
She hoped she didn't accidently drive him insane before she could be with him.That would definitly put a damper on her plans.  
  
Her tail, wrapped about her waist, twitched. 


	2. Annoying Interruptions

"You smell good, woman." Vegeta breathed in the scent of her blue-tinted hair, so soft against his touch, and felt her sigh against him as he licked a trail of wetness up her throat and nipped at her delicate chin before taking her mouth beneath his own, "Like cocoanut."  
  
"It's my new shampoo." She said, her voice a whisper as he pressed her against the wall, one hand moving up her thigh, shoving the hem of her skirt high on her leg, feeling the tingle of her skin against his own, like electric bolts coursing between them, "Vegeta.what.?"  
  
"Shh." He said as he found the waistband of her panties, smiling secretly to himself as he felt her dampness through the thin, silky material, "I know you've missed this as much as I."  
  
It had been weeks since he'd taken her and the strain was wearing on him. His mind was such a blur now, filled with emotions and yearnings, that he could not rightly have said, exactly how they came to be in their current situation in the hallways outside the bathroom. All he knew was that she filled his senses and he wanted more than just a breif taste.he wanted all of her.  
  
Bulma shoved her hands through his hair, lifting his face from her breast as he suckled her through the material of her blouse, his mouth leaving a mark of wetness over her taut nipple, and forced him to kiss her once more, whimpering against his mouth as his fingers found her bud of pleasure and stroked it gently.  
  
She could feel him getting hard against her and reached down to cup his manhood through the material of his uniform, marveling, as she always did, at exactly how large and stiff he'd become in only a few short moments with her. She felt somehow.powerful.to have such ability. She licked his ear and smirked to herself, which was swiftly wiped from her face as his ministrations became more demanding of her attention. She sagged against him and bucked at his hand involuntarily with her hips, needing what he was offering. She sighed his name against his hair and nearly begged for him not to stop.  
  
"I have no intention of stopping, woman." He said, his voice low with need, "But we may want to take this out of the hallwa.."  
  
Call me!  
  
Vegeta stumbled back from Bulma, his hands flying to his head. Bulma, unstable from his treatment of her, sank down to the floor against the wall but looked up at him in confusion and concern. He grimaced and turned from her, the hardness in his pants all ready beginning to soften.  
  
Reflection!  
  
No! Vegeta cried to himself, Not now! The voice hadn't bothered him in weeks, he was almost certain he'd heard the last of it and now.now it had decided to show up at the most annoying of moments! He glanced back at Bulma, who was sitting with her arms folded over her chest, looking mussed but no less desirable. He felt his throat tighten as he looked at her.  
  
"Vegeta?" She asked, "What is it? Do you have a headache?"  
  
Call me! Damn you!  
  
"Shut up! Just shut up!" He yelled, at the voice in his head, but Bulma must have thought he was screaming at her because she got to her feet and glared at him.  
  
"What is with you, Vegeta!?" She cried, rage flashing across her blue eyes, her brows drawind down like stormclouds over turbulant waters. He tried to come after her, to show her he hadn't meant to yell and not at her but she jerked away from his touch, "Don't touch me! Just leave me alone, ya psycho!"  
  
The mirror!  
  
"Ggah!" Vegeta held his head and willed the voice to cease it's yelling inside of him. He stumbled away from Bulma and into their room, slamming the door shut behind him. He saw the crib in the corner and his daughter's mindless gurgle as she played with her toys and stuffed animals.  
  
She saw her father come in and smiled, holding out her tiny arms in a demand to be lifted out of her crib. Bulma must have just put her down for a nap and the little girl had had other ideas. He smiled down at his daughter, through the pain in his head, but did move to lift her from her barred prision. "Shh, Bra.Honey, go to sleep. Daddy can't deal with you right now."  
  
He sank down on the bed and covered his ears as his daughter's soft baby gurgles became screams of frustration at having her father deny her. She began to throw her toys out of the crib, her little face crimson with anger. It's no wonder, Vegeta thought as he looked up as saw the baby's red face and blazing blue eyes, with two parents like Bulma and I that she would have a temper.  
  
Just then, Bulma stormed into the room and glared at him, striding towards the crib to pick up the little girl. "I see even your own daughter is subject to you mood swings!"  
  
"She was just having a temper tantrum, Bulma." He said, sighing, as he lay on the bed, "She would have stopped eventaully."  
  
"Oh, and you couldn't be bothered to check and see if she was wet?" She asked, holding her tiny look-alike on her hip, "Or god forbid, she just wanted some attention from her father?!"  
  
"Go away, woman." He said, grabbing a pillow and covering his head, he was trying to muffle the shrillness of her voice but with his acute saiyan hearing that was very difficult to do, "I don't feel like listening to your voice."  
  
Bulma, her face almost as red as her daughter's had been moments ago, opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. She was too angry form words. Instead, much to Vegeta's releif, he heard her footfalls and the slamming of their bedroom door as she left.  
  
"Da-Da seepy?" He heard Bra's high-pitched baby voice behind the door as she was carried away by her mother and Bulma's lower, more sarcastic response; "No, Da-Da's a jackass. Come one, sweetie pie, lets go play in the living room."  
  
Call me!  
  
Vegeta held the pillow tighter against his head but could not muffle the voice inside. It forced it's way into his mind and could not be ignored. If only he could figure out what it wanted from him! If only he could understand what it was he was soppose to do! 


	3. Plans Are Made

She walked along the paths that criss-crossed their way through the lush gardens which populated thisworld like a flowering paradise. Fountains flowed and gurgles all around and sent a relaxing feeling all through those who walked it's paths eiher alone or with their twin selves.  
  
As she walked, Toshi gazed longly at the couples around her, many different species, many different walks of life. All whole and with each other because they knew who they were. Some, when they were called, choose to stay in thisworld instead of going through the mirror into otherworld, where she longed to be.  
  
She paused to pick up a stone and skip it across the surface of the fishpond, watching the lazy fish swim around and scatter as the rock coursed across the top. She sighed and sank to her knees, gazing at herself in the water's reflection. Her white hair was sticking up on her head as usually and her dark eyes looked pale in the water. Her tail, the same hue as her hair, flapped absently behind her.  
  
"Toshi! Toshi!" She turned as she heard her name and smiled as she saw her cousin, Kyoko and her dark twin, approach. They sank to their knees besides the girl in the grass, slipping off their shoes and dipping their toes into the sun-warmed water of the fishpond. Kyoko smoothed back her silvery-black hair and her twin repeated the gestured with own golden locks, "Did you hear about Mara?" She asked, her eyes glittering, she was always the little gossip of the family, "She tried to call her twin and was refused!"  
  
Toshi gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. There could be no worse thing in the world than to call and be denied! She felt her stomach churn in fear of her own twin's rejection. She felt sorry for their friend. "Poor Mara."  
  
"I know!" Kyoko said, her eyes wide, her twin's eyes mirroring her own as she nodded beside her in the grass, "Her mothers say she won't even come out of her room! She hasn't eaten in three days!"  
  
"Oh, no!" Toshi said, "We can't let her starve herself! We have to help her, Kyoko!"  
  
"How?" The smaller girl spread her hands, "What's done is done. Mara called and was rejected. How can we help her?"  
  
Toshi shook her head, uncertain. She had her own problems to deal with, didn't she? But Mara was like a sister to her.she'd helped care for her after her parents and their twins were killed.She'd known Mara had been trying to coax her twin to call her for years, just as she had been trying to get her's to summon her. But, she had not ever been directly refused before!  
  
"To tell you the truth, cousin," Kyoko was saying, and her twin was nodding and looking grim, she finished the for her twin; "I think she should just kill herself and save our family the shame."  
  
"Kyoko!" Toshi cried, scandalized over her cousin's words; "How can you be so heartless! Mara's suffering right now and she needs us!" She got to her feet and brushed the grass cuttings from her skirt, glaring down at her little innocently looking relative, ashamed to be of the same blood.  
  
"Where are you going?" Kyoko's twin called out.  
  
"To see Mara." She answered, not looking over her shoulder, "To let her know that not all of us are ashamed of her!"  
  
Had she looked back, Toshi would have seen the look of hurt that passed over both faces behind her, but she did not. She continued on towards where she knew her friend lived with her mother and her dark twin. She couldn't imagine the pain the older girl was going through.she hated to think what it would be like.but she curbed that train of throught. Just because her twin hadn't yet realized she had been seeking him didn't mean he'd rejected her!  
  
No. She still had time. Maybe she could help Mara as well. She didn't know, but she could try. Nothing bad could come of trying, could it?  
  
She knocked on the door and Lucia, Mara's mother, opened it, she always seemed to glow with the light of an inner warmth and made Toshi feel at home and comfortable. Her twin was behind her, holding a basket of flowers she was in the process of arranging for a the mantle over the fireplace. Toshi nodded a greeting towards Maria and asked about Mara.  
  
"She's in her room." Lucia sighed, looking forelorn, "She hasn't come out in three days.and she refuses to answer her door."  
  
"Can I talk to her, Lucia?" Toshi asked, touching the woman's arm gently, "Maybe I can help."  
  
"Maybe," She agreed, "Go ahead. She might talk to you since you are nearly the same age."  
  
Toshi nodded. She wasn't near the same age as Mara, in fact, she was young enough to be her daughter, but since, in thisworld people did not age as they did in otherworld it made little difference. She took the stairs two at a time and rapped upon her friend's bedroom door with her knuckles.  
  
"Mara?" She called, "It's me, Toshi! Can I come in?"  
  
"Go away!" Came Mara's muffled cry and Toshi thought she might be laying with her face buried in her pillow. "I don't wanna see anyone! I should be dead!"  
  
"Don't say that, Mara!" Toshi cried, "It's going to be okay! Let me in, okay? I think I can help."  
  
Silence. She could hear sniffing behind the door and movement. Finally, Mara unlocked the door and opened it. Toshi tried to disquise her shock at her friend's apperance. Mara's dark locks were bedraggled and hanging in greasy strings down her pale, gaunt face, her eyes were hollow and dark- rimmed. She had creases about her eyes and mouth as she stared at her friend across the doorway. "Well? What do you mean?"  
  
Toshi moved passed Mara and sprawled out onto the bed, playing with the pink ruffled comforter for a moment before answering. "We could do a double summoing."  
  
Mara gasped, her hand to her throat. "Toshi!" She cried, "Those are dangerous! And even if we don't manage to end up.scattered.what if we're caught? My mothers would skin me alive!"  
  
"Just a minute ago you wanted to kill yourself." Toshi said, sighing, "What's the big deal. The least we can do is try!"  
  
"Yeah, but."  
  
"You want your twin or not, Mara?" Toshi said, cutting swiftly to the heart of the matter.  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Then we'll do it." Toshi said, her own heart racing at the thought, what if we're successful? She grabbed Mara's hand in her own, "Tonight. At midnight. Come to our secret place in the forest.bring the mirror."  
  
"And you bring yours." Mara sighed, giving in, she could not hide her heart's desire, "I hope this works, Toshi."  
  
Toshi smiled. It will. It had to! 


	4. Through The Glass

He had been meditating for the past three days. Secluded in his favorite spot in the mountians, far from the distractions of others, Piccolo spend his hours in the sun and deep within himself. It always comforted him to seek solace within and he drifted away, once more, into the welcoming void.  
  
It had been several days since the voice had last called to him, summoning him out of his reverie with the rudeness of youth and making him growl in spite of his control. He'd followed that voice inside his head to it's source and had seen who it was who was intruding on his mediations.  
  
He'd closed his mind to her. Shoved her out and rejected her. That his actions may have seemed cruel did not bother him. She had no right trying to force her will on him in the first place!  
  
~*~*~ "If this doesn't work, Toshi." Mara was saying, but she was all ready beginning to take on aspects of her twin, as was sometimes the case, some are born looking like their other selves while others took time to change.  
  
Mara's complexion had taken on a greenish tint and the silvery-black hair that fell over her face had changed to black with dark green highlights. A wisp of bangs hid an emerging annatae from sight.  
  
"It will, Mara!" She said to her friend, "Look! You're already changing! You know that means it will work! He won't deny you a second time! Trust me!"  
  
"Are the mirrors ready?" Mara said instead of answering, her new form was hard to get used to, scents and sounds seems sharper, more clear, "We only have this once chance, Toshi, after that."  
  
"I know." Toshi said gravely. She knew as well as anyone that to do a double summoning and be rejected.they risked being thrown into the void forever.scattered.as their people called it. She shivered. Such a fate was worse than not finding your dark self at all!  
  
"All right.may as well begin." Mara said, facing her own mirror, as Toshi faced her's, palms outreached touching her glass image, she began the anceint chant; "Light to light, Dark to dark, Hear my plea, Come to Me."  
  
Toshi took up the chant, feeling woozy, her tail still at her side, the mirro she faced began to fog over; "Mirror to mirror, shadow to light, soul to soul, make it right."  
  
"Thee to me or me to thee, We summon you forth! Thee to me! Thee to me! Thee to me!"  
  
~*~*~  
  
Vegeta gasped as he felt something tugging at him. Goku laughed and asked what the trouble was, landing a clean blow to the other's jaw and watching as the shorter man stumbled backwards in mid-air.  
  
"Vegeta?" He asked, "What's wrong? Your acting weird again."  
  
Vegeta didn't answer instead he looked down at his hands, covered as they always were in the white gloves he wore, and saw, in shock, that he could see through them to the ground below! He shook his head in confusion as the world became fuzzy, came back into focus and became fuzzy once more. Kakkarot was yelling at him now, making his head ache more than it all ready was.  
  
"Vegeta! What's happening to you!" He was yelling, "Y-Your fading out!"  
  
Vegeta shook his head again unable to answer. He felt helpless and disoriented and those feelings shoved up his anger like nothing else. He screamed and tried to use his ki to remain solid, teeth clenched with the effort.  
  
"N-No!" He screamed, shaking with the force of his will, "I won't let this happen!"  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Thee to me! Thee to me! Thee to me!" Mara and Toshi cried, tears streaming down their cheeks, feeling the effort it was taking to get their twins to accept their fate. Toshi was having a particularly difficutl time. But whatever strength her twin possessed, she too possessed and fought back like a galestorm! Feircely pounding herself into him, her hands and face towards the glass..  
  
"It's not working." Mara whispered, pausing in the chant, Toshi growled and did not answer. She was close. She knew it! A moment longer.  
  
"Thee to me! Dammit! You know I can force you! Thee to me!"  
  
~*~*~  
  
You know I can force you.  
  
The words echoed in his mind. They were different from the voice who had been seeking, calling and pleading with him over the past.however long he couldn't really say. But he felt and could also hear the familiar voice in the background, stuggling to slip past his mental barriers.  
  
He looked down at himself and saw, much to his dismay, that he had begun to dissolve, his physical body fading from sight. He could see right through himself in some areas. Piccolo didn't know what was happening but he did not like it. Not at all!  
  
Thee to me! Thee to me!  
  
He heard the chant in his head and it became louder and more demanding. He could hear the one he had rejected louder than the other, now. He struggled to remain whole and build his mental walls back up, as they were knocked down relentlessly.  
  
"Why are you doing this?!"  
  
Thee to me! Thee to me!  
  
~*~*~  
  
"It's working, Toshi!" Mara cried, as her hands felt more than glass beneath them, "It's really working!" "Of course it is!" Toshi whispered, sweat drenching her face as she felt her own hands clutching something, Palm to palm she felt the hands pressed against her own and curled her fingers about them, tugging, "Thee to me! Thee to me! Thee to me!"  
  
"Thee to me!" Mara continued, her hands wrapped about the flesh she felt, suddenly, pressing palm to palm against her own. Her image had shimmered, vanished, became the image of a powerful, green-hued being whose annatae and ears resmebled her own, now. He was scowling at her through the glass, his ebony eyes stark against the contract of his face.  
  
She ignored his look and, with one last cry, pulled him through the glass to stumble into herself. She glanced over just in time to see Toshi yanking her twin through her own mirror, and realized how alike her friend's hair appeared, save for it was light and his dark, to her twin's. She struggled to a sitting position and shoved her hair out of her eyes, her annatae twitching at the touch of her hand.  
  
"What happened?" Toshi's twin asked, gaining his feet and taking up a fighting stance, the other, Mara's, stood back to back with him, glaring at them, "Who are you? Where are we?"  
  
"It's okay!" Toshi cried, standing face to face to with Vegeta, "My name is Toshi. Haven't you heard me calling to you, Vegeta?"  
  
"Calling?" Piccolo gasped, facing the female who looked, oddly, like a namek! If that were even possible! "It was you! Wasn't it? You were the one in my head!"  
  
"Of course!" Mara cried, tears streaming down her cheeks, "After all this time.Toshi! I can't believe it really worked! I can't believe it!"  
  
"What worked?" Vegeta cried, "I don't know what's going on here but."  
  
"Vegeta, wait a minute." Piccolo said, looking at Mara for a long moment. The girl stood there, unblinking, waiting. "There's something.something about her.I don't know what."  
  
"She's your twin soul, doofus!" Toshi cried, "God! How dense can a person get! Can't you tell just by looking at her that you were meant to be together!?"  
  
"Impossible!" Vegeta cried, now looking at the girl who seemed to be his mirror image, only slightly smaller, of lighter hue and of course, female. She raised her eyebrows up at him and gave him one of his own smirks, "You.you look like a saiyan."  
  
"Of course I do!" Toshi said, "Sheesh! Do we have to spell it out for you morons! We look like you because, in a way, we are you!"  
  
"Don't call me a moron, you little.!" Vegeta raised his hand, ready to slap her silly, but she mirrored the action and he paused, taken aback. She'd raised her hand at the exact same time he'd raised his. It was as if she knew.knew what he was about to do.even before he knew it himself! The feeling was unnerving.  
  
"We have to make a decision." Mara was saying, crossing her arms in the same manner as Piccolo, next to her, her face taking on his expression, "Are we to remain here.in thisworld.or go on to otherworld with them?"  
  
"I say we remain here, for awhile." Toshi said, circling Vegeta and enjoying the fact that he was, after so long, finally with her. She was overwhelmed with joy. She could not cease her smiling, "And show them off.besides they might want to stay here with us."  
  
"No way!" Piccolo cried, "We are not staying here!"  
  
"You have no choice, big guy." Toshi smirked, tossing her head to one side, arrogantly, "You are in our hands now, both of you. There's not a damn thing either of you can say about it!"  
  
Vegeta fumed at the uppity little girl before him and he narrowed his eyes, wanting so badly to attack her and make her pay for her tone of voice, but he didn't. He didn't know why, but he felt that if he attacked her, it would like hurting himself and that was just too stupid to contemplate. Besides, she was starting to remind him of someone.  
  
Dare he even think it? She was starting to remind him of.himself!  
  
"What is this place?" Piccolo asked, after calming down enough to allow the girl to try and explain things better, "It looks.familiar.but, not."  
  
"This is called thisworld." Mara said, as they covered the mirrors and turned them over, facedown, on the grass, "It's a mirror world, the complete opposite of your own plane of exsistance. We call your demision otherworld because.well, it's other than ours."  
  
"We each of us have a mirror self," Toshi took up the explainantion for her friend, "A twin soul, a dark self, not dark as in evil, just dark as in...the opposite of light, see." She touched her hair and tail and then reached out to touch Vegeta's, "You are my dark twin to my light self."  
  
"What about Piccolo and Mara?" Vegeta asked, looking at the two, "Neither of them are darker than the other."  
  
"No," Mara said, "But look, see? My skin is a shade darker than his.and my hair is dark as well."  
  
"Yes, I think I understand." Vegeta said, nodding, "So you are Piccolo's dark twin and I am Toshi's?"  
  
The girls nodded, breathing a sigh of relief that they were at last, getting through to them!  
  
"Our world is populated with twin souls." Mara said, "As you will see when we show you around tomorrow."  
  
"But if this is true, how come.?"  
  
"There aren't many twin souls and dark siblings in your plane?" Toshi finished Vegeta's query, "Because not many on your plane know about dark siblings or how to call them forth."  
  
"This is just getting more and more confusing." Piccolo said, still looking at Mara, "I don't know what to believe!"  
  
"Don't worry," Mara said, touching his arm gently, her fingers sent small electical currents up and down his arm, "Everything will become clear, you'll see."  
  
Vegeta shook his head.  
  
Well, he thought and caught Toshi's look, at least I found out where that voice was coming from!  
  
You're gonna find out a lot more than that! Toshi's voice in his head spoke loudly, and when he glanced back at her, he caught his signature smirk on her lips once more.  
  
"Well, I'd say things about about to get interesting." Piccolo said almost to himself.  
  
"As if things weren't interesting enough." Vegeta answered, scowling. 


	5. Seige Of Fire!

So this is thisworld. Vegeta mused as he walked along beside the girl who more than just resembled him. They had neither of them slept the night before, it being way past midnight when they'd come, very undignified to say the least, into this world. They had, instead, spent the remainder of the night and the wee hours of morning seated in a semi-circle on the grass of the surrounding forest, talking.  
  
Vegeta figured that as long as they were going to be stuck here until and if the girls decided they wanted to check out his demision.otherworld.as they called it, he may as well learn all he can of this demision and these people just in case they one day end up as enemies.  
  
He glanced over at Piccolo and saw the namek warrior was glancing side-long at the green-skinned female next to him every few moments as they were led through a quant little villa with gardens and waterfalls and fountains everywhere. The scent of heavily perfumed blooms assaulted the saiyan prince's nostrils at every turn and the blazing sun with a crystal azure sky was almost blinding to look at.  
  
"Where are we going?" He asked, feeling very much like the proverbal lamb being ushered into the mouth of the bear's cave.  
  
Toshi glanced at him, walking a little bit to the side and ahead, she smiled and her dark eyes glittered. Her tail was wrapped safely about her waist. He knew that should he reach out and grab it roughly she would be in a great deal of pain. He wondered if she'd ever changed upon glancing into a full moon.  
  
"First we are going to Mara's so you can meet her parents.and then I must take you both to my house." Toshi explained, "Don't worry, no one will harm you here. We have a rule against violence against others."  
  
"Hmm." Vegeta breathed, seeing all the people around and none of them were fighting or ever quarrelling. Everyone seemed.so.happy. He clenched his fists at his side. No combat? No yelling obsenities at each other while fist were flying? "What about sparring? And training?"  
  
Mara glanced back and looked at him in confusion, "For what?" She asked, "If we never go to war or fight anyone.what would the point of training for it?"  
  
"There is more to it than that." Piccolo said, "We train to balance our minds, spirits and body. We learn how to fight so that we don't have to fight. Understand?"  
  
She shook her head, her dark green hair falling over her eyes. "I understand. We are connected. What you know and understand, I automatically know and understand."  
  
Piccolo nodded. Perhaps.  
  
Vegeta couldn't wait to leave this world!  
  
They arrived at the first dwelling. It was a small, roundish shaped house much like the capsule houses of their own demision, with a pink door set against a white washed exterior. Mara stepped ahead and opened the door, pausing to do something odd with her fingers in the air. Before any questions could be voiced, Toshi explained breifly before Mara opened the door; "Warding spells.Mara just unlocked her front door for us, allowing us to slip past the guard spells."  
  
"If you have no violence here, what is the point of guard spells for a house?" Piccolo asked, ducking his thought the small enterance behind the others.  
  
"We said we have a rule against it," Mara said as two impossibly beautiful women appeared from the other room, "It doesn't stop thieves from trying to gain access to our homes."  
  
"Besides," One of the women spoke and Mara embraced her and then the other, "Most of our thieves are harmless, if you stay out of their way.still, who likes to wake up to all of your valubles gone?"  
  
"Mara, honey, you've changed!" Maria cried, touching the girl's cheek and looking over at Piccolo, her eyes wide.  
  
"Your twin?" Lucia asked, her voice barely a whisper, "After all this time, child.can it really be?"  
  
"He's here, isn't he?" She said, "Mothers, I want you meet my twin soul, Piccolo and that's Toshi's; Vegeta."  
  
Vegeta nodded, but he was standing with his arms crossed and looking like he was nearly bored out of his skull. He wanted nothing more than to leave. As soon as possible. Piccolo bowed graciously to the two women and they smiled kindly back at him. He could feel a great strength eminating from them, a gentle, subdued strength, but strength none-the-less.  
  
"My name is Lucia," Lucia said, and indicted the woman at her side, "And this is my twin self, Maria."  
  
"Lucia is the one who bore me," Mara explained, "But both are my mothers."  
  
"Where.?" Piccolo began and Mara interrupted him, since she all ready knew what he was about to ask,  
  
"Where my father is?" She said, "My father died a while back, he never found his twin and." She faltered, but Piccolo read her thoughts as they passed through the forefront of her mind and did not probe further. Such memory was a painful one, he could see.  
  
"What of your parents, Toshi?" Piccolo asked, unable to read her as easily as he could Mara, "Do you have two sets of parents? Two mothers and two fathers?"  
  
"I used to," Toshi said, as they settled into the livingroom. Lucia and Maria went to fetch refreshments and came back with a tray of finger food that Vegeta sniffed at but did not stop himself from helping himself to most of it and Piccolo only took a glass of water with a nod of thanks at the two women, who left to allow their daughter and her friend to continue their conversation with their long-awaited twin selves. "But, after having me, My parents and their twins decided they wanted to see what your world was like, so they left me in the care of my grandmothers and ventured forth through the mirror. I've never heard or seen them again and most of us think they are dead, killed somewhere in your demision."  
  
Just then something rang and Mara blinked, holding out her hand and a device like a telephone appeared in her palm. She flipped back the cover and spoke into it. After a moment she gestured towards Toshi, who had been seated up on the arm of the sofa next to Vegeta, her tail tickling the back of his next annoyingly. He's been about to slap it away from him when the phone rang.  
  
"It's for you, Toshi." Mara said, "Your cousin."  
  
Toshi rolled her eyes heavenward. That's all she needed. Her gossipy little cousin's voice to grate on her ears. She lifted the phone to her ear and said; "Kyoko! What a pleasnant.Yeah, it's true.how'd you know? Oh, uh-huh.No you can't come over! Kyoko! Wait.don't." She took the phone away from her ear, "Hang up."  
  
She sighed and Mara shook her head; "Kyoko's on her way over?"  
  
"Yes." Toshi said, now she really felt sorry for their twins, "Sorry about this, but my cousin is a bit.overzelous. I'm just warning you in advance."  
  
"It's funny how different in temperment her twin is to her." Mara said, as she took the glass from Piccolo absently and finished the last half of the water, plucking out an ice cube to suck on it as she thought, "She should be here soon. How'd she hear about us so quickly though?"  
  
"Oh, don't be stupid, Mara." Toshi said, sitting back down on the arm of the sofa next to Vegeta, her tail swishing back and forth behind her and rustling the hair at the back of his neck, "We just paraded ourselves through the villa, and this is a small villa, word spreads fast."  
  
"And Kyoko always has her ear to the lines," Mara nodded, "Oh, I hear here coming now!"  
  
About five minutes later there was a breif rap of the front door and Kyoko along with twin Mariko nearly skipped through the hallway into the livingroom. They paused long enough to shout a greeting to Lucia and Maria and stopped before Vegeta and Piccolo, who had rose at the sound of the front door opening.  
  
"So, it's true!" Kyoko said, clapping her hands together, her black fox- like ears on the top of her head twitched back and forth, her bushy silvery- black tail was wrapped about her twin's as they shoved slivery black locks from their faces and awaited a response.  
  
Toshi shook her head at her cousin, she knew they'd only worn their fox- shapes to impress the newcomers and it sickened her. Normally, they wouldn't be caught dead in their other forms as they liked to look as human as possible. Toshi never understood why, if she had the ability to change back and forth at will into a human form an half-human form and an fully beast form she would be all over that! But not her cousin.  
  
Kyoko and Mariko had the ability to change into full black foxes if they wished to do, or remain half and half, as they were now or fully human girls as they appeared when they'd sat next to Toshi by the pond the other day talking about Mara.  
  
"Kyoko!" Toshi cried, "Stop trying to impress everyone! No one cares about your stupid ears and tails!"  
  
"Well, you know we are the only ones in the entire villa who are kitsune!" Kyoko said, "Your just jealous!"  
  
"Can we please stop this nonsense all ready!" Vegeta cried, losing patience, "I don't give a rat's ass who's what or who's jealous of who, I just want to get out of here!"  
  
Vegeta had stood up and was facing Toshi, who was glaring up at him in much the same manner as Bulma. She said; "Don't yell."  
  
"Don't tell me what to do, woman!"  
  
"I'll do as I please!" Toshi cried, unphased, "And don't yell!"  
  
"You're the one who's yelling, moron!"  
  
"Idiot!"  
  
"Female!"  
  
"Saiyan!"  
  
"Enough!" Piccolo exploded, Mara at his side, her face wore the same expression as his, "You two are hurting my ears! You can fight with each other later, we have more important things to worry about, or didn't you notice the strange looming shape that just appeared in the sky."  
  
"Oh, yeah." Mariko said, her face flushing, "That was the other thing we came to tell you about."  
  
They could hear people screaming outside and glass breaking.  
  
"Legendaldan's back." Kyoko said, "We heard him arriving in here." She touched her brow, her twin touched her own, "And thought we'd have enough time to warn everyone.but."  
  
"He arrived sooner than we thought he would." Mariko finished, "Looks like this is it. I'm happy you found your twins at least, but we have no time to go through the mirror and escape."  
  
"And those poor people.our friends." Kyoko said, her eyes blinking back tears,  
  
"And families." Mariko said, "We can't leave them to die alone."  
  
"What's all this crap about dying?" Vegeta asked, his fists clentched as he heard an ear-splitting roar and saw flames errupt thought the window outside, "Who says you just have to give up and let yourselves be killed and your homes destroyed! We can fight this thing.Legendaldan."  
  
"We can't fight him!" Mara cried, "He's the biggest, most fearsome dragon in all of thisworld! Those who have tried, have all been turned to crispy critters by his his flames or suffocated on his smoke.and what he does with the bodies.." Mara shivered at the memory of the last time the great bloodthirsty dragon ravaged their villa. They were still, after twenty years, cleaning up the mess.  
  
"Just because you don't know how," Piccolo was saying now, "Doesn't mean he can't be killed."  
  
Kyoko screamed and hugged her twin as the glass from the livingroom window shattered and a blast of heat rushed through. Maria and Lucia raced from the back room and huddled near their daughter, both of whom seemed to know that the end was near.  
  
Mara looked from Toshi to Vegeta and Piccolo and was amazed when she saw her friend shake her head and say; "Piccolo's right. Just because we don't know how, doesn't mean he can't be destroyed. We have to figure out a way."  
  
Mara nodded, feeling terrified but deciding not to allow that to hinder her, she swallowed; "It is time to learn to fight."  
  
"There is no time to teach you!" Piccolo cried, crashing through the all ready busted window and taking to the air, "Vegeta! Come one! We have to put an end to this monster right now!"  
  
"Wait!" Mara said, pausing for a moment to connect herself with her twin, figuring out how, exactly, he knew to fly, and suddenly after it clicked in place in her mind, followed him though the window. She knew Toshi was doing the same, "For us!"  
  
"No! Go back down and find a safe place to hide!" Piccolo yelled back at them, as they spied the dragon, huge and terrifying, scooping up random fleeing people and chomping them between numerous rows of blood and gore dripping sharp teeth, "We can't fight and protect you at the same time!"  
  
"You don't need to!" Mara cried, at his side, "We are connected to you, remember. What you know, we know."  
  
"We will fight with you!" Toshi finished, "And nothing you can say will change our minds!" She said as she shot a ki blast at the dragon and watched as Vegeta shrugged and did the same, seconds later.  
  
"But."  
  
"Don't argue with them, Piccolo!" Vegeta said, "If they want to get themselves killed that's their decision! Let's go!" 


	6. Challenge and Consequences

Legendaldan danced easily enough away in mid-air from the fire the small creatures, flying like him, threw at him, those blast that did hit him were absorbed into his thick hide, not without pain, but not enough to hinder his actions. He crunched bone and blood seeped from his maw as he turned about in the air, dark purple leathern wings beating a rythum and keeping himself aloft.  
  
Foolish mortals! Leave off attacking me or die like these!  
  
His mindtouched raked through their heads, Piccolo winced but did not back away and Vegeta merely growled and altered his course of attack so that his blasts were stronger, faster and more explosive. Toshi and Mara cried out in pain as the dragon's voice stabbed at their brains, but they did not fall to the ground in submission as the beast would have liked.  
  
On the ground, Mara could see the kitsune twins; Kyoko and Mariko, as they emeraged from the now blazing house and gasping up at them. She silently wished they would go find shelter someplace far from here. Far and safe! But they did not. She took her eyes from them as Legendaldan dived through the air towards her and Piccolo. She felt claws rake the flesh of her upper arm before Piccolo shoved her far to one side and she had to swallow back pain and fear to remember how to keep herself airborn.  
  
She did not bother with observing her wounds close over and heal themselves in a matter of seconds. She flew back to the dragon, now seperating herself from Piccolo and connected herself mentally with her twin, learning the things he knew in mere moments. She raised her hands the same time he did, on the other side of the dragon, and unleashed an impressive assualt she knew, from reading his thoughts, was his signature attack.  
  
Special Beam Cannon!  
  
She heard Piccolo's voice in her head as clear as if she herself had spoken and watched as the dragon writhed in the power of their double attacks. The beast opened and closed it's mouth in silent agony, dark wings flapping feriously, trying to keep itself upright through it's torment. It flashed it's ember eyes and spoke uncoherant thoughts of pain and hatered of all things humanoid as Vegeta and Toshi resumed their own attacks. Toshi, flying too close to the dragon, was grazed by it's wing talon across her stomach and fell backwards and down in a spiral towards the earth, no longer remembering how she had been able to fly in the first place.  
  
She clutched at her stomach, but the gash which had been sliced through her clothing was gaping and ugly, dark blood stained her skin and the material she wore. She felt herself falling but was unable to cease her desent. Suddenly, she felt herself pause in mid-air, suspended but with nothing to hold her up. She looked up and saw that the others had nearly succeeded in subdueing the monster. She was glad, at least for that. She ached terribly and knew her life's blood was pouring out of her at an alarming rate.  
  
"Stop strugging, Toshi!" She heard the voice of her cousin below her, and then that of Kyoko's twin, Mariko; "We will lower you down gently."  
  
She looked down to see the twins, their black-silver fox ears erect and their bushy tails straight out behind them as they raised their hands, palm- upwards, towards her. She saw Kyoko mutter a chant beneath her breath and Mariko made a few subtle gestures with her fingers as Toshi felt an invisable net embrace her and she began to decend, slowly, towards the waiting earth.  
  
Still fighting, his strength not ebbing in the slightest, Vegeta saw with peripheral vision the woman-child named Mara, the saiyan-like female who'd claimed to be his soul-twin falling, broken, from the sky and then the two fox-females were there, beneath her, doing something odd and saving her from crashing headlong into the waiting earth. He breathed a sigh of releaf and watched at the dragon before him began to grow weaker. He could feel the monster's ki, once strong, growing ever dimmer as it struggled to fight for it's very exsistance.  
  
"Toshi!" Mara cried, looking down for a split second to see her friend falling, and a sudden rush of blazing heat slashed across her face, burning and blinding her all at the same time. She screamed and raised her arms, too late, to sheild herself from Legendaldan's flaming breath and choking smoke.  
  
Piccolo felt the fire that had rushed at Mara, felt it as if it had been him who had just been burned. He flew over to where Mara was hovering, away from the dragon, her arms crossed over her face and her antannae smoldering. He could feel her pain though his own body and winced as theblackish-green skin on her face, head,neck and upper arms bubbled and began to mend itself. The process was not without pain and she trembled in the air as agony washed over her.  
  
"Keep your attention on the fight, girl!" He growled at her, but helped her downward towards her friends, his touch was at once comforting and frightening and Mara choose to ignore it as she could hardly see or feel anything past the blazing agony of her scorched flesh healing, "You and Toshi.and the little foxes.find somewhere safe!"  
  
"N-no!" Toshi cried, hearing him from where Kyoko and Mariko had helped her to the grass. She was trying to stand up, bent over holding her belly from spilling it's guts all over the ground, forced the words from between dry lips, the pain was making it difficult for her to see what was in front of her, "I want to fight!"  
  
"You can hardly stand up!" Piccolo yelled at her, and she flinched, but did not back down. Her face was so pale she looked translucent. She was in no shape to quarrel and she knew it. She growled deep in her throat and snarled at him, but allowed her cousin and Mariko to guide her away.  
  
"Piccolo." Mara said, reaching out to touch his cape, he turned about and saw that in the time it had taken him to rebuke Toshi she had nearly healed all the way and looked into her deep dark eyes.so green they appeared to be black. "I'm nearly healed all the way now. I can finish with you."  
  
He shook his head, "No," He said, "Your ki is very weak. You need to rest.your not through healing. Go with the others."  
  
"I can fight!" She said, her voice harsh, raspy to her own ears.  
  
"Don't argue with me, girl!" Piccolo raged, fury in his gaze, she could not keep her eyes from sliding away from such fire, "Go!"  
  
Mara turned away and saw Mariko as she took her arm and lead her, along with Kyoko and Toshi, away from the frightening creature still looming like a shadow of doom over all. She hardly heard the people still screaming and running in all directions around her or the littered pieces of corspes strewn across the ground. She just stepped over them and watched, in her mind's eye, her twin flying back upwards and launching himself back into the fray.  
  
Mara winced in pain as she felt the rake of claws across Piccolo's chest, heard with her namekian hearing, the material of his gi splitting apart as Legendaldan slashed out blindly at whatever or whoever was near.  
  
Toshi half turned, ahead of Mara and saw Vegeta still shooting his ki blasts at the dragon and grinned to herself as she saw Legendaldan finally begin to waver, his wings flapping less fluently now, blood which belonged to him now dripping downwards to fall like bright drops of crimson rain upon the dead body littered ground.  
  
It was over in seconds after that. The monster's scream sounded disturbingly human as it spun, spiraling downwards towards the ground as those left alive strove to flee from the hulking shape as it fell. Legendaldan was dead before he hit the earth, creating a great crater that some dozen unlucky few either too old and weak or hurt to run away fast enough fell into and were crushed by it's weight as it threw itself about in it's throes of death. Piccolo and Vegeta rejoined the women and the kitsune twins, scarred and bloody, but not doing too badly. Mara had Toshi's head cradled on her lap as she sat in the grass near one of the untouched foutains. The bleeding had stopped and Kyoko was busy wrapping clothe she's torn from her own dress about her cousin's wound.  
  
"How is she?" Vegeta asked, peering down at her, "She looks pale."  
  
"Were she of mere human blood she would have been dead by now." Mariko said softly, "You are the only thing keeping her alive."  
  
Toshi's tail twitched behind her and she groaned as Kyoko bandaged her. Vegeta saw her small hands clentching and uncletching at her sides and knew she was fighting to stay alive. Fighting as feircely as any saiyan warrior. He leaned down and touched her cheek gently. "Keep it up, girl! Don't give up!"  
  
"She'll be okay," Kyoko said, finishing with her wrappings, her once ankle length skirt now barely covered the tops of her thighs, "But we should get word to Helena and Elena."  
  
"Yes, Our Grandmothers should know about Toshi," Mariko said as she stood over her twin and inspected her work, "It's cruel not to let them know right away about one of their own being injured."  
  
Mara shifted her weight so that she carefully lay her friend's head down on the soft grass beside the gurgling fountain and stood up. "I'll go." She said simply, slipping away before anyone could think to say anything other than; Okay. Piccolo watched her leave before he felt Vegeta's gaze on the side of his face.  
  
"Go on." He said to the towering namek, "I can take care things here."  
  
Without waiting for more, Piccolo gathered his cape about himself and followed after the strangely beautiful creature who, after so short a time, seemed to know him better than he knew himself and who attracted him like metal to a lodestone.however mysteriously.he didn't think he'd ever understand this whole twin-mirrors stuff, but all he knew was that he had shared a connection with her.much more than the one he had shared.still shares.with Gohan.and that he had felt her pain through his own flesh when she'd been hurt and she'd felt his!  
  
He did not know if Vegeta had had a similar experience with Toshi and didn't care about asking as he caught up with the female namek who had felt his approach ever before he'd decided to follow her. She did not look at him but shook her head instead, a rush of sorrow engulfed him and it took a moment for him to realize that it as her emotion and not his as she thought about the loss of so many lives to the monster they had just killed.  
  
"Such a waste." She muttered, but Piccolo's namekian ears picked her voice and her words up as clearly as if she'd screamed them, "So much death.so much pain." And to his shock, but not total surprise, he saw the tears in her eyes and a wave of greif over.was it true? Legendaldan. Did she really grieve for the horror who had killed so many of her people? He touched her hand at her side and felt, in that slightest of contacts, all she felt and held dear.she held all life sacred.no matter that it woud have destroyed her had she not fought and helped to end it's life.  
  
"I couldn't be helped, Mara." Piccolo was saying, trying, in his awkward way, to lend her comfort, "You know this. It had to be put down."  
  
"I know." She said, wrapping her fingers around his as they walked towards Toshi's grandmother and her dark twin's house, "I just wish it hadn't had to be." She paused, added while looking side-long at him, "Perhaps it's better in your world?"  
  
Piccolo's mind flashed on numerous enemies he and others had fought and some had even died to and shook his head sadly. "I'm afraid not."  
  
Mara did not reply and they were nearly to Helena and Elena's front door anyway. 


	7. Restoration And Resolutions

Vegeta stood surveying the damage around him, it was nothing new.the dead lying about, bloody and broken. The living barely alive and moans of terror mixed with pain filling the afternoon air.  
  
He walked away from the two kitsune girls who were hovering over the girl who looked like a photo negative of himself and heard the one called Mariko mutter a few odd words and her her sister take up the strange chant, their hands held towards the hurt girl.  
  
"We have to fix what's broken inside first, sister." Mariko said, as she gestured with her hands towards their friend, who had sunken into a blackness to escape the pain and did not move as the two fox girls spoke over her in hushed, anxious voices, "You work on easing the strain on her heart.I'll mend her insides."  
  
"Then we can close the skin over the gap." Kyoko agreed, her hands warming up with the inner power of healing she and her sister shared. She placed her palms upon Toshi's chest and felt the faint flicker that was her life force as her heart beat beneath her touch. She consentrated for a moment and placed her other hand upon the girl's forehead, adjusting herself to the strange blood which now coursed through her cousin's viens.  
  
She could feel her twin working to knit flesh and muscle back together and dared not look up from her own task. Had she glanced towards Mariko she would have seen the dark kitsune's face drenched with sweat and her eyes closed tight in consentration.  
  
Vegeta paused as he stepped over a body, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the sight of the head severed and laying, grinning a lurid, mocking death- grin, a few feet away, and turned back as he felt an odd sensation in his stomach that felt like a bunch of bugs were eating through his skin. He quelled the sudden urge to clutch at his gut and turned back towards the girls.  
  
She's fighting us!  
  
The voice in his head was not Toshi's. It took a moment for him to realize that no one had been speaking to him, however indirectly. He saw Kyoko and Mariko exchange a look across Toshi's body and understood that he had accidently caught a message being passed from one to the other.  
  
Move past her barriers.she has to let us by to finish our work!  
  
I cannot force her, you know that! That would do more damage than good.  
  
"What's this?" Vegeta asked, stepping up to them, arms akimbo, "The girl fights like a true warrior in the battle, but gives up when she's being healed?!"  
  
Kyoko looked up at him, her hands trembling as she held them over her cousin, she spoke in a voice that shook with the effort it took to form word; "S-she is afraid of letting us into her mind, past her mental walls, in order to f-finish healing her."  
  
"She is just being stupid!" Vegeta dropped to the ground and took ahold of the girl by the shoulders, shaking her roughly, Mariko screamed and flew backwards, her bushy tail flayed out in shock, "Stop this nonscence you stupid girl and let them finish healing you!"  
  
Toshi moved her head a bit, her stomach didn't feel so bad now, for some reason. Has she the strength to reach down she would have felt the blood which had been seeping through the bandages had ceased to flow and, in fact, she was nearly all mended but for a few small things.such as her strength and the pain.  
  
".V-Vegeta.?" She mumbled her twin's name, smelling him near, feeling him near. Her eyes fluttered open a bit and saw his face scowling down at her. She didn't have the energry to start another quarrel and slipped back into the comforting darkness, her head lolling backwards on her suddenly unsupportive neck. Vegeta laid her back down and the kitsune girls swiftly took up where they'd left off.  
  
She's too weak to struggle.  
  
We can finish this now.she'll be all right!  
  
Kyoko looked over Toshi as Vegeta and he saw something akin to gratitude in her dark eyes for a breif moment before she twitched her ears and looked away. He ignored her and pretended not to notice Toshi breathing more easily or the grip of ice which had been holding his chest in constant pain as she lay near death on the ground surrounded by fallen bodies.  
  
"Toshi!"  
  
Vegeta looked up at the sound of the voice and saw that Piccolo and Mara were returning. She carried Elena while Piccolo had the other woman safe within his strong arms. Not that the older women were very heavy.  
  
Elena and Helena probably wieghed no more than one hundred pounds a piece, perhaps even ninty. It was Elena who had cried out upon seeing her eldest daughter's child sprawled out on the blood soaked earth next to the flaming buildings and sreaming people seeking their loved ones among the rubble.  
  
Piccolo and Mara landed with their burdens near Vegeta and Helena and her twin-soul raced towards their granddaughter upon being set on their feet once more. Elena fell to the ground and took the girl's head onto her own lap, stroking her bony fingers lovingly across Toshi's brow, she kissed her forehead and tears dripped upon her granddaughter's face.  
  
"Elena, She's okay now," Helena said, sitting on the other side, next to Kyoko, she took her other granddaughter's hand in her own, "Kyoko and Mariko have healed her. Can you not see? She merely rests now."  
  
"I know that." Elena said, "I was just so afraid when they said."  
  
Toshi opened her eyes and smiled softly at the two dear faces leaning down over her in concern. She spoke their names in her mind and then turned her head towards Vegeta half an inch. Elena gasped and raised her hand to her mouth, taking in the sight of the second stranger she and Helena had seen this day.  
  
Child! Helena spoke softly in her mind, her voice like a soft snowfall across her mind, soothing and brisk all at the same time, Can it be? Your twin-soul.?  
  
"Grandmothers." Toshi whispered, "Mara and I.did a double."  
  
"A double summoning?!" Elena cried, suddenly angry, "Do you know how dangerous that is?! We could have lost you forever!"  
  
"Y-you could have.lost me.today." Toshi tried to laugh but it came out more like a cross between a choke and groan.  
  
"I'm glad your going to be okay, Toshi," Mara stepped foreward, her green skin seemed to glow and her antannae bouced a bit on her brow, "Because I've come to a decision."  
  
Everyone turned to her and waited, wondering what the odd looking female was about to reveal. She took a deep breath and said; "I am going through the glass. I want to see what Piccolo's demision is like."  
  
"And I have to get back!" Vegeta said, suddenly worried about his family, "Bulma's going to be sooo pissed!"  
  
But Mara shook her head at him, slightly amused, "No she won't be." She said, "We didn't tell you.I guess it slipped our minds.time runs a bit different here. What seems like several hours to you here, you mate back through the mirror only knows a few seconds have passed.You haven't been gone as long as you might think."  
  
"Regardless," Vegeta said, "I wish to return."  
  
"When Toshi feels better," Elena said firmly, "You may not leave without her."  
  
I had no intention of.He thought as he glared down at the old woman, But, what about Bulma.and his children.? Where do they fit into all of this? 


	8. Back Through The Glass

"I can't just leave them." Mara said, as she stood next to Piccolo watching the survivors of Legendaldan's destruction gather themselves together and drag their dead loved ones into a pile near the center of the villa near the prettiest of the fountains that was not damaged. She wrapped her arms about herself and shivered, "They're my people, no matter that I no longer rememble them."  
  
Piccolo nodded and narrowed his eyes. "If only we could have done something sooner.then all this.this death would not have been."  
  
"It's not your fault, Piccolo!" Toshi said as she wiped the ashed from the fire on her pants and helped a little girl find her mother, who was, thankfully, still alive, "No one could have prevented the losses.our people just don't know how to fight! Not that they could have ever beaten a monster like Legendaldan!"  
  
"She's right," Vegeta said, as he bent down to wipe the face of another little one and place some salve on his right arm that Elena had given him, which had been burnt pretty badly in the fire. The kid sniffled but did not cry as Vegeta bandaged up his hurt arm. "If it hadn't been for the four of us.nothing of this villa would even remain!"  
  
"I'm just thankful that there are survivors!" Toshi said, standing with her arms akimbo, fists on her slender hips. Her white gravity-defying hair had flecks of ash and dirt in it and her face was smudged with scraps and bits of blood, some her own, most belonging to those she had been helping, "I know that I go on to the otherworld, through the mirror, now, and know that my grandmothers and Kyoko and Mariko are safe!"  
  
"Yes, where are we going to do that, by the way?" Vegeta asked, unaware that he was standing exactly the same way as Toshi, who had her head thrown back regally, "And how?"  
  
"We will do it the same way we did to bring you here." Mara said, as she shoved her dark green hair from her face, her green-hued complexion looked paler since she had still recovering a bit from being injured.in contrast, her friend had recovered quite nicely thanks to the aide of their cousins and looked not in the least hurt.  
  
Mara assumed her newly aquired namekian healing would kick in the rest of the way and she would feel better later. Perhaps just mending the burned flesh and recreating new skin had been as much as it could do for now.  
  
It did not matter. She was alive and her twin was with her. She smiled over at him. That was all that mattered. She would ignore the lingering pain and concentrate on the matter at hand. "Instead of a summoning," She said, "We'll change the direction of the course to allow us all to enter the mirror and be in your world."  
  
"We'll have to teach them how to breathe." Toshi said, recalling the breathing training she and the other villa children are put through almost from the moment they begin to talk and walk. They'd had to breath with each other in the correct ways in order to use the chants correctly and call forth Vegeta and Piccolo.  
  
"We know how to breathe!" Vegeta snorted, looking at Toshi with digust, "How can we not know.we'd suffocate and die!"  
  
"I don't think that is what she means." Piccolo said, still connected to Mara, "She is talking about the special breathing that we use when we fight.you know."  
  
"Oooh!" Vegeta's eyes became wider as realization hit. He folded his arms across his chest and looked away, hautily, "I already know how to do that as well!"  
  
"Not the way we do it, I'm sure." Mara said, "Toshi, are still connected to Vegeta?"  
  
Toshi shook her head, looking at the Saiyan prince, who was watching her side-long, "No, he keeps breaking off our connection."  
  
"Well, stop it!" Mara said, her dark green eyes narrowed, "We need to stay mentally bonded with them if we are going to get through the mirror or one of us may be left behind."  
  
"Or end up scattered." Toshi shivered, and touched Vegeta's arm, instantly they're minds were linked as one, once more as in the fight with Legendaldan. Vegeta found it unnerving to have somone else's thoughts and emotions in his head. But Toshi was so much like him that he got used it in a matter of moments. He looked over at her to see her smirking at him as if she could read his thoughts. Which, of course, she could.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Later that night, Toshi's grandmother and her sister-self bid their granddaughter a tearful goodbye while Kyoko and Mariko in their full human forms sat on their sofa with Vegeta and Piccolo standing behind the sofa and Mara perched near the kitsune twins watching Toshi hug the frail looking elderly women.  
  
"Oh, Toshi!" Elena cried, stroking the girl's light hair, "I know we will always be with you, but."  
  
"I'll come and visit, Grandmother!" Toshi said, hugging her tightly, "I have so much to learn of the world outside out demision.there is just so much I have not seen yet!"  
  
"I know, dear one." Helena said, nodding, tears streaming down her wrinkled face, "You are young and eager and your heart believes that nothing ill shall come of you."  
  
"I know you fear that I may meet the same fate as my parents," Toshi said, blinking back her own tears, "But they weren't as strong as me. I know things that they could never have known! But, regardless, my parents choose their fate.just as I must choose mine. Come what may."  
  
"Yes." Helena sighed, letting her go and standing back to look at her, "It is time to let you go."  
  
"Past time." Elena agreed, she gestured towards the double mirrors that had been brought back to their house after the girls had summoned Piccolo and Vegeta to them, "It's nearly time. Quickly now, take the mirrors and be gone.we shall always love you, Toshi."  
  
"Grandmothers!" Toshi cried, embracing them and crying all over again, "I shall miss you both so much!"  
  
"Knock it off!" Vegeta snarled, but he felt her pain at the departure, peircing like a barb in his chest, "We have no time for this foolishness!"  
  
Instead of replying, Toshi turned to her cousin and her twin and embraced them as well, stroking her hands down the silvery-dark hair which the girls had decided to wear in adorable matching sets of pigtails this evening. They were still wearing their school uniforms and looked the picture of twin innocence.  
  
"You promise to come back through the glass now and then to visit, Toshi?" Kyoko asked, "You promise?"  
  
"I promise, Kyoko!" She said, "You just do good in school and mind our Grandmothers!" Kyoko nodded, "We won't have anyone to gossip with after you are gone."  
  
"No one in school likes us very much," Mariko said softly, eyes downcast, "You are more than just our cousin, Toshi, you are our friend as well."  
  
"Our best friend!" Kyoko said, "How will be get along without you?"  
  
"Listen, you two." Toshi said, "I won't be without you, not really, anytime you get lonely.just look into a mirror and call me. I will answer.if I can. And I will be keeping an eye on you as well."  
  
"That's right!" Kyoko cried, clapping her hands together, her tears turning instantly to smiles, "We can still communicate through the mirrors! With our minds.! How could I have forgotten.that is how Mariko and I talked to each other before I was old enough to call her to me."  
  
Mariko's face flushed, but she smiled and nodded. She reached out and took her twin's hand.  
  
"Are your parents okay with you leaving them, Mara?" Piccolo asked as they walked behind Toshi and Vegeta back to the place in the forest where the girls had first summoned them, seeming years ago but really only less than a day had passed.perhaps a bit more.it was hard to tell in thisworld, "You didn't seem to be as emotional in your farewells as Toshi was with her's."  
  
"They will be all right." Mara said, "In a way, They have been prepared for this day long before now. We've said our goodbyes to each other a while ago."  
  
"Are you as eager as your friend to see new things?" He asked her, "Experience new things?"  
  
Mara was silent for a moment, when she answered she spoke softly, her namekian ears could hardly hear her own voice; "Not really," She said, looking at him, "But I knew I had no life, once I saw you, apart from you. I wish to go where you go, Piccolo, no matter where that is."  
  
"Okay, you two!" Toshi tossed back behind her shoulder, "Stop making google- eyes at each other and pay attention! We can only do this once and it had better work!"  
  
Mara chuckled and looked away while Piccolo's cheeks burned at Toshi's words. They had reached the clearing at last and Piccolo and Vegeta helped them set up the mirrors at the correct angles. Vegeta and Toshi stood together, facing one mirror while Piccolo and Mara faced the other.  
  
Taking Vegeta's strong hand in her own, Toshi motioned for Mara and Piccolo to hold hands as well. "Now, our minds are all ready linked, so you know how to breathe." "Start with rabbit breathing first," Mara said, falling easily into the pattern, waiting until Toshi and the others caught up, "Now, switch to fox breathing.Toshi.begin."  
  
"Through the glass you have come." Toshi started the chant, the echo of it bouncing within the minds of their twins, "Through the glass we shall come.me to thee and thee to me."  
  
"Forever shall we always be," Mara spoke loud and clear, her one hand facing the glass as Toshi's faced her's, her other hands holding onto Piccolo's hand, "Part the mist and let us through, through the glass to someplace new.part the the glass and let us through."  
  
Thee to me and me to thee.Piccolo and Vegeta heard in their minds and they watched the glass grow ever more fogged. Part the mist and let us pass.Part the mist and let us pass.  
  
"Look!" Piccolo cried, "The glass! It's shifting."  
  
"It's opening!" Toshi cried, yanking on Vegeta's hand, "Look! There's your friend, Goku."  
  
"Yes! We were sparring when you jerked me into your plane." Vegeta sounded miffed but Toshi knew they didn't have time to worry about it. She pulled his hand towards the glass, her own body nearly halfway through, "Come on, Vegeta! We haven't time! The portal will close soon!"  
  
"You heard her!" Mara said, tugging Piccolo the same way, though the tall powerful namekian warrior had to duck and squeeze a bit to get though the mirror, he could see his meditation spot shimmering through the glass, "Piccolo." She said just before they'd passed through the glass together, "Tuck and roll!"  
  
Taken by surprise at the sudden drop, Piccolo did just that and landed on his feet, forgetting for a moment his ability to fly and turned to see Mara as she rolled a few feet away, leapt gracefully to her feet and brushed herself off. She looked around and smiled.  
  
"It's so peaceful here." She said, "I wonder where."  
  
"Vegeta was sparring with Goku when Toshi called him," Piccolo said, "I was meditating."  
  
"I know!" Mara said, crossing her arms under her breasts, "It took forever to get you to let down your barriers and aknowlege me!"  
  
"I did aknowlege you," Piccolo reminded her, "I rejected you, remember?"  
  
Mara chewed her bottom lip for a moment; "Yeah, why?"  
  
Piccolo shrugged, "I didn't understand who you were.you might have been an enemy."  
  
I'm hardly that! She said in his mind, her antannae twitching as she moved closer to him.  
  
I know.now.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Vegeta!" Kakkorat's annoying voice pounded into his head as they came through the glass into his world, "You're not all faded out anymore.but who is that?!"  
  
"Nice to finally meet you, Kakkorat." Toshi grinned, reaching out a hand to the startled Saiyan warrior, "Or would you prefer I call you Goku?"  
  
Goku looked at the girl, who seemed a female version of Vegeta, hair and all.well, save for the tail.which he just noticed was wrapped protectively about her slender waist, and blinked stupidly, "You can call me whatever you want as long you tell me who you are and where you came from!"  
  
"My name is Toshi," Toshi tossed her head back, smirking like Vegeta, "And there will be plenty of time to tell you where I came from later.right now I am hungry and want to eat."  
  
"Food?" Goku asked, "Oh, yeah! That sounds good! I think it's almost lunch time anyway. We were gonna stop for lunch, right Vegeta?"  
  
"Of course," Vegeta snorted, "No one can keep up with your appitite!"  
  
"And I gotta find Mara!" Toshi said.  
  
"Mara?"  
  
"It's a long story, Kakkarot." Vegeta replied as they flew downward towards Goku and Chi Chi's, Toshi's stomach growled loudly and Goku chuckled, right before his own complained even louder. 


	9. Interesting Circumstance

When they arrived at Goku and Chi Chi's they were a little surprised, but not really, to see that Bulma had come over to help the other woman with getting the meal ready for their warrior menfolk. Chi Chi was in the kitchen, Goku could hear her humming softly to herself as she busied herself amid pots and pans. The scent of cooking food made his mouth water and his stomach growl louder.  
  
Bulma, who had been seated on a chair with little Bra in her lap, placed her daughter on theground to play with one of the dragonballs and stepped up to her husband with an almost apologetic expression on her face; "Vegeta? I-I shouldn't have stormed off like that.it was unfair of me."  
  
"You can say that again, you infuriating woman," Vegeta said, "Sometimes I don't know why I put up with you." He was smiling and he was sure that she could see he'd been joking, but her face blazed over once more and she sputtered in newly aquired anger;  
  
"H-how dare you?!" She screamed, her fists clentched at her sides.  
  
"I can't believe your nerve! Of all the thick-headed." Before she could say more, she snatched up her daughter so swifty the little girl cried out and nearly dropped the shiney toy her mother had given her to play with. Bulma grabbed the ball from her and tucked into her pocket.  
  
"I'll be in with Chi Chi," She tossed over her shoulder as she made her way to the door, little Bra feeling her mother's rage, began to wail, "At least with her I'm appreicated!"  
  
Vegeta winced with the slamming of the door.  
  
Is it safe to come out now?  
  
Toshi's mindtouch felt like a cool caress and he nodded absently. It would do no good stalling and trying to prevent the inevitable. Bulma would have to meet Toshi sooner or later. He sighed. He just wished he'd could be far away when the proverbal waste hit the fan, so to speak.  
  
"Doesn't that smell good?" Goku grinned, as Toshi emerged from her hiding place behind a huge potted plant. He gave her a huge Goku-style smile and asked, "Betcha never tasted anything like my Chi Chi's cooking!"  
  
At that moment, Chi Chi opened the back door and stepped outside onto the patio. She held a basket slung over one arm which she almost dropped at the sight of Vegeta and Toshi standing there with Goku. She gasped and her hand flew her throat. Goku quickly ran to his wife's side, taking her arm protectivally, "Chi Chi, this is Toshi." He said, but he was at loss for anything else since that was the extent of his knowledge regarding the strange girl. He glanced at Vegeta for help.  
  
"S-she looks just like." Chi Chi began but the sound of the door opening once more drew their attention as Bulma was just stepping outside.  
  
"I just need some chives from the garden and I." She stopped in her prattle and her eyes fixed on Vegeta's little female look-a-like. She walked up to her, towering over her by a few inches and said, her finger painfully pointed into the other woman's chest, "Just who the hell are you?" Toshi's dark eyes narrowed and she was immediately put on the defensive. She shoved the blue hair woman away from her and said; "I am Toshi. Vegeta's twin-soul. He answered my summoned when I called to him via the mirror and brought him into my world where he and his green friend, Piccolo, aided us in destroying the dragon who had been feeding off our village for whoever knows how long!"  
  
"Twin-soul?" Bulma asked, confused, "Mirror? What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
Toshi stepped closer to Vegeta and wrapped her tail about his waist, secretly pleased at the anger and envy flashing across Bulma's blue eyes at her obviously possessive gesture, "As I am part of him, so he is part of me." She went on, "Now that we've found each other.nothing short of death can ever part a twin-soul.."  
  
"That can be arranged.." Bulma seethed, lunging for the girl, who had moved aside quickly and Bulma ended up falling to the potted plant Toshi had been hiding behind. She screamed her rage and humilation and started after her again, her hands raised and curled into claws which Toshi easily enough avoided.  
  
"You may as well get use to the idea, Bulma." Vegeta said, hating to see the hurt on her face, "There's nothing anyone of us can do about it! Untill either she or I die.she is stuck with me.and with us."  
  
Bulma breathed heavily, glaring at them both daggers.  
  
Vegeta spread his hands. "Believe me, if there was a way to get rid of her and just have you.I would do it in an instant!"  
  
Toshi growled at his words and landed a hard kick to his shin, he winced but didn't cry out at the contact. He continued to face his mate, the one he loved with all his heart, the mother of his children.  
  
"We have to made this work, Bulma." He said, "None of us have any other choice! It's not my favorite situation, I admit, but you and Toshi have at least got to try to see things eye to eye."  
  
"Hmph!" Bulma folded her arms under her breasts, "Never thought I'd see the day when Vegeta, Mighty Prince of Saiyans would be preaching peace and understanding over battle and training for more battle.!"  
  
"Finding your twin sometimes had odd effects on a person." Toshi ventured, suddenly tired, "Bulma, Your world is so much different than where I come from. I need to understand.I want to learn. If we can both agree that we have at least one thing in common.will you help me to learn about your world?"  
  
"What can we possibly have in common?" Bulma asked, "And why should I help you? After all, you're trying to steal my husband!" Toshi shook her head; "No I'm not." She said, "I don't need to steal what was all ready mine.just as I was all ready his.long before he met you, Bulma. But, as for what we have in common. We both love him."  
  
Bulma was caught, it was true! Heartbreakingly true! She dd love him and she could see by Toshi's eyes that she spoke the truth. She sighed and all her anger seemed to evaporate like boiling water left on the burner for too long.  
  
"Come on," Bulma said to her, "I'll show you where you can sleep.then after lunch, we can go shopping and I'll show you around."  
  
Things are about to get interesting. She sent into Vegeta's mind.  
  
"As if things weren't interesting enough." He replied aloud. 


	10. An Odd Feeling of Power

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter! Next one will be longer, I promise! Thank you D. Yasha sweetie for reading and reviewing this story chapter by chapter! It's such a thrill to open my email and get a new review! Makes me feel all happy-giggly and warm-fuzzy all over!  
  
Mara watched Piccolo go through his daily routine, enjoying the play off muscles beneath taut green flesh. She sat on a small hillock, dandilions bloomed around her in their seed-stage, all white and powder-puffy. She held a hand to her eyes to sheild herself from the brightness of the morning light. She'd spend the night curled up against him in a small opening within the mountain they were near, his body warming her's and she subcumbed to an exhausted sleep.  
  
She didn't know if he slept at all.of he even needed to. All the years of watching him, trying to break through to make contact, she'd never once seen him sleep. Close his eyes in meditaton, sure, been knocked out in a fight, of course. But, sleep? She shook her head, pulling her long think dark hair over one shoulder, she used her fingers to comb through the tangles.  
  
Mara carefully worked her hair free of snags and snarles and sighed as she began to braid one side into a thick dark green plait and tied it off with a piece of string she'd brought into this plane by use of her newly aquired namekian powers. She started work on the other side until she had her hair like she wanted it; Twin braids on either side of her face. Her bangs hung down just above her eyebrows.  
  
"Are you done playing with your hair, Mara?" She started, embarraced that her keen namekian hearing did not give away his position to her long before he'd spoken in a near whisper at her back, "If so, I need someone to spar with."  
  
She turned, her clothing that had been torn and hanging off her slender frame from the fight they'd waged against the horrible dragon in her demision had been discarded. Piccolo had used his power to summon a gi similar to his own, save for that it was dark green in hue with a lavender sash. She stood up and wiped the bits of dandilion fluff from her legs and grinned.  
  
"You can't spar with me, Piccolo." She said, walking up to him, "Don't you remember? I know every move you will make even before you've thought of them. We are too much a part of each other for a spar between the two of us to have any challenge at all."  
  
"Your probably right," He said, turning his face away, his ears pricked and he raised an eye-ridge, "However."  
  
"Hmm?" She asked, stepping away from him for moment, trying to hear what he was hearing, "What's there?"  
  
"Not sure." Piccolo said, taking to the air to get a better vantage point, Mara followed, "Could be nothing.I just thought I sensed."  
  
Suddenly, as if it had been awaiting someone to locate, to show it's strength to, Mara was backhanded by something far more powerful than herself and she spiraled downwards towards the ground. In a flash, Piccolo intercepted her before she could hit and lowered them both down to the ground gently.  
  
Mara! Mara! What is it? She head his voice in her head and with her ears as he asked her frantically what had happened.  
  
"S-such power." She gasped, feeling ill, she choked and tried again, "Still feel it.pounding in my head.awefull!"  
  
"I felt something too." Piccolo said, as Mara gained her feet once more. He turned away again, looking upwards, "We have to go tell the others."  
  
Mara nodded, still shaky and followed her twin-soul into the air. A sutble brushing of a curious mind flitted past her's for a moment, too swift for her to figure out anything from, as she followed in Piccolo's wake. 


	11. A New Arrival

I'm cold, She thought as she shoved silvery-blue hair from her delicate nearly transulent face. She shivered in her egg-like vessel, having been hurled though space and landing non-too-pleanantly on the soil of the planet which had, from the view from her ship moments.or had been days?.seemed a distance ball of blues and whites.  
  
She closed her eyes and saw the faces of those she loved moments before someone had picked her up and tossed her into the escape pod. She had hardly enough room to shift her weight, however light that was, and was feeling a bit sick due to the gravity on this world after spending most of her life shipbound hurtling from star to star with her space-faring parents and grandparents.  
  
She knew her family was dead. The explosion which she'd felt enough through the protective layers of metal about her little pod rocked her and sent to spiralling downwards towards the planet below. She had closed her eyes tight after that to avoid seeing anything like body parts floating in the black vaccum. She'd not wanted to see the end. She blinked back tears and paused, feeling something.  
  
"I felt it from over here strongest." Piccolo said, but Mara placed a finger to lips and shook her head at him.  
  
Send! Do not speak! We can still take it by surprise.  
  
Look! Having spotted the egg-like vessel, Piccolo and Mara carefully approached.  
  
She pushed the button over her head which should have opened the door. It should have. The problem was.much of her escape pod had been damaged in the crash landing it had obtained. She gritted her small teeth together and pulled her legs back until her knees were just under her chin.  
  
She started to kick with all her strength. Her shimmering blue and gold butterfly wings were folded against her back. They looked fragile, but were tougher than regular insect wings. Her thin, sensitive antannae moved as she tried to figure out where, exactly, she was.  
  
Piccolo and Mara watched wide-eyed as the pod began to buck and rock from side to side, as if it were an egg about to hatch. Mara took a step forward, towards it but Piccolo rested one hand on her shoulder and stayed her approach. They watched as a small human-seeming creature finally tumbled out after getting the obviously stuck door to unlatch and open.  
  
What is it? Mara asked herself, accidently sending her query to Piccolo, who shrugged and walked over to it.  
  
It's a little girl! Mara gasped, stepping up next to Piccolo, to the child she said; "Who are you, child?"  
  
The girl was small, small-boned and fine of feature. She looked to be about six years old though when she raised her eyes to Mara's, she looked much, much older. Mara gazed into her hazel eyes and saw flecks of green and blue swimming within those orbs.  
  
She was dressed in an odd garment that seemed to shimmer like stardust, matching the sparkling blue makeup around her eyes and covering both of her long, delicately tapered ears.  
  
Before either Mara or Piccolo could do or say anything, Goku appeared next to Piccolo, looking at the small butterfly winged child and the escape pod she'd just emerged from. Vegeta and Toshi arrived a few moments later, seemingly as stunned as the others were.  
  
Goku did a humorous double-take at the sight of Mara but before he could ask any questions her felt an odd tugging that demanded his attention.  
  
"I felt a." Goku began and then shook his head, "It can't be from this little girl.can it?"  
  
"I don't know." Goku stepped over to the girl, who had stood up and was now glaring at them all with even mixtures of fear and confusion. "It's okay.I'm Goku.who are you?"  
  
She muttered something in an alien tongue, one that none of the others had ever before heard. Then she shook her head and smiled, replying in their own langauge; "I am called Aubria."  
  
"Aubria." Goku went on, as the others behind him listened intently, or at the very least Piccolo and Mara did. Vegeta and Toshi just looked bored. "Where are you from? Where's your ship?"  
  
"We were attacked," Aubria said slowly, "They were much stronger than my family's ship could handle. I remember my mother and father shoving me into an escape pod and launching it out moments before the ship exploded. I wish I could have saved them."  
  
Aubria became silent, brooding. She knew why her mother and father had seen to her welfare first and foremost. She's known all her young life that she was destined for greatness. She had all the markings and signed from the old prophecy. Even now she could recite it, unbidden, in her mind. But she did not think that now was the time to get into such a discussion.  
  
"Your power is immense!" Vegeta said, walking up to her and looking down into her eyes, "I find it hard to believe that someone with your capabilities could not have saved your family from being blown all over space!"  
  
"I could do nothing!" She cried, tears in her eyes, "They who attacked us were far stronger in power than I! If I could have stopped them, don't you think I would have?!"  
  
"Shh." Mara placed her arms around the girl, sheilding her from Vegeta's scowling face, she stroked her soft silvery hair and did her best to calm the child, "It's okay now, Aubria. You're among friends. Shh."  
  
"Y-you don't understand!" The child sniffled, her face buried in Mara's shoulder, "I-if I couldn't even save my own family, how can I be the one the prophecy has foretold!?"  
  
"Prophecy?" Mara pulled her away gently and held her by her shoulders, she had knelt down to embrace the child and now crouched on one knee looking at her, "What are you talking about?"  
  
"Y-you mean." She sniffed, swiping a hand across her eyes, "You don't know?"  
  
Mara looked at the others, who merely shrugged or shook their heads in confusion, she turned back to the girl, "No. We don't."  
  
~*~*~  
  
Meanwhile, back home, Bulma was furious. At her husband. Which shouldn't make anyone all that much surpised. She was feeding little Bra in her highchair while holding her cell phone balanced between her shoulder and ear. A bit of oatmeal dripped from her blue bangs and she tried shoveling more of it into her daughter's mouth, only a small bit of it ending up in the child's stomach. The rest decorated the tray of her highchair, the child and the other. Bulma sighed as she continued to rant and rave into the phone.  
  
"Can you believe the nerve of him, Chi Chi?!" She cried, as Bra banged her plastic spoon on the tray and demanded her mother's attention, Bulma reached over and swiped at Bra's face with a washcloth, not doing much good and slopped some applesauce from a jar onto the little plate with the seprated areas for different foods. "He just waltzes right in with that girl who could be his long lost twin sister or something and expects me to just roll over and take it like an obedient little lap dog!"  
  
Bra giggled and flipped the bowl over, watching in delight as applesauce and oatmeal splattered her mother and the floor and looked down from her highchair to see her breakfast dish laying upside-down on the floor. She began to cry. Bulma was about to pull her hair out at the roots she was so frustrated.  
  
"I don't have anything against the girl, Chi Chi, don't get me wrong. Vegeta was a jackass before she came along and he'll be one after she's gone, I sure. I'm just angry that.that..well, that he didn't tell me about her beforehand! We're suppose to be partners! Married people would tell each other these kinds of things, right? Right?"  
  
Chi Chi was silent for a moment. "Maybe." She began, listening to Bulma's heavy breathing as she tried to calm down, she also heard Bra screaming in the background, "He didn't know about her beforehand."  
  
"Yeah, right." Bulma said, sounding hurt, "If he can't even trust his own wife with the knowledge of his twin-self.or soul.or whatever she is to him, how can our marriage even survive?"  
  
"It will, though." Chi Chi said, "You and Vegeta love each other more than both of you even realize. You know that nothing can part you two.so why are you jealous?"  
  
"J-Jealous?" Bulma laughed, at least she tried to but it came out more like a hiccuping sob, "Why should I be."  
  
"Mamma! Mamma! Mamma!" Bra yelled pounding on her highchair with her spoon. Bulma snatched it from her and, when her abrupt movement caused her little daughter to first look shocked and then to wail, she plucked a piece of chocolate from a candy bar she'd been munching on earlier from the counter and into the child's open mouth. Bra's eyes got wide as she tasted the sweet candy and she clomped her mouth shut and became silent as she sucked on the swiftly melting chocolate, content at last.  
  
Bulma breathed a sigh of relief and in the back of her mind she thought; Almost any problem can be solved by chocolate.  
  
"I wish my feelings for this girl could be solved by candy." She muttered and Chi Chi asked her what she'd said. She told her not to worry and soon hung the phone up. She turned to her daughter, shaking her head, "You're a mess, kid." Then she looked down at herself, "And so is your Mother. Come on, let's get cleaned up."  
  
~*~*~  
  
"You can stay with us for now, Aubria." Goku was saying as the girl turned away from the female who looked namekian.even though Goku knew that couldn't be right.she had to be something else, right? Something that just resembled the nameks.right? "I'm sure Chi Chi won't mind an extra houseguest."  
  
Aubria hiccuped and nodded, "T-thank you, Goku."  
  
"Aww, it's no problem!" Goku blushed, looking at his feet. Vegeta thought that he would punch him if he suddenly burst out with a Gee, Shucks! He rolled his eyes and prepared to leave.  
  
"I see you've got things under control here, Kakkorat." He said, and to the child, "I look forward to testing you in combat one day."  
  
"I don't wanna fight anyone!" Aubria cried out, her wings unfolded gracefully and she fluttered them, seeming to test them on this new planet. She carefully lifted herself from the ground and then fell back to her knees with a thud. "Gravity.it's much heavier here."  
  
"Your used to it being much lighter, aren't you?" Piccolo asked, helping the little girl to her feet once more, "It's going to be hard for you to learn to fly here."  
  
She nodded, pouting cutely, her eyes nearly as large around as saucers, "On my own world, we hardly needed our wings to fly. We could catch an air current and drift.like." She looked around, spotted a dandilion seed floating gracefully in the air, "That flower-seed there!"  
  
"Well," Goku said, his hands on his hips, "You'll just have to practice. But, come on! I have to get home anyway.I'm missing breakfast!" As though awaiting it's cue, Goku's stomach rumbled and complained. He lifted the small, winged child up and took to the air with more grace and agility that she'd ever seen.even among her own kind.  
  
"Catch ya later, Mara!" Goku waved, holding Aubria with the other arm, "Piccolo!"  
  
Mara shook her head, bemused and said; "I'm already beging to like it here.never a dull moment, is there?"  
  
"You'd be surprised." Piccolo said, "But it does get to be tedious after a while."  
  
"Heh." Mara covered her mouth to stifle her laughter, "Wonder what's next? Perhaps some horridly strong evil menence will come to slaughter innocents and be nearly impossible to kill."  
  
Piccolo gasped, and looked at her, his eyes wide; "Don't even think such a thing.!"  
  
She shook her head. "I'm just kidding, Piccolo.geez.do you think I'd want something like that to happen? Besides, didn't you hear me say 'nearly impossible to kill' that means it could be killed, right?"  
  
"What?" Piccolo asked, "Your imaginary evil friend?"  
  
"Well.you never know."  
  
"Really."  
  
"Yeah, really."  
  
"Be quiet and let me meditate in peace." Piccolo said, folding his long legs beneath himself and floating in mid-air, he closed his eyes and began the steady breathing which would sink himself deep within his own mind. Mara sighed and matched his moves, soon the peacefulness of feeling nothing and everything all at once washed over her.  
  
Just before she slipped into darkness, she wondered what Toshi was up to. 


	12. Child of Prophecy

"Excuse me, Bulma?" Bulma turned, her arms full of clothing she'd just taken from the nearby racks, people bustling all around her, shopping, to look at the girl who resembled her husband in more ways than one, "What are we doing here? I'm hungry and tired."  
  
Toshi folded her arms under her breasts and glowered at the shapely, blue haired woman. She recalled that the day hadn't started out to her liking. Yesterday morning, she'd gone with Vegeta when they'd felt that strange unfamiliar power and found it's source to be an odd little winged child. She and Vegeta, having gotten bored with the whole thing sooner rather than later, had left the child in Goku's care.  
  
Almost the moment she and Vegeta walked through the door, Bulma was screaming at them. She looked a mess, Toshi recalled, looking at the perfectly groomed and poised woman before her. She'd been holding Bra on her hip, both the mother and baby were caked with oatmeal and what smelled to her like applesauce.  
  
Bulma's pretty blue hair was dripping food and hanging in tangles around her face. She's shoved Bra into Vegeta's arms and demanded that he clean her up. Before either he or Toshi could say a word she had marched upstairs and into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind her.  
  
"Don't worry about her," Vegeta had said, adjusting his daughter so that she didn't get gunk all over him. He carried her into the kitchen and set her on the counter next to the sink. She reached up and tried to grab his hair with her sticky fingers, but Vegeta was too quick for her, "Bulma's always in a bad mood..you'll get used to it."  
  
"Hmm," She leaned against the counter, away from the baby but near enough to catch her should she start to fall, lucky for them that little Bra had natuaral balance and just giggled at the two of them as Vegeta filled the sink with water and added some baby shampoo for suds. Bra loved soap suds. "She wants to take me shopping tomorrow."  
  
Vegeta looked at her, one dark eyebrow raised, "She's starting to like you."  
  
"I think it's more of a charity case." Toshi snorted, laughing, as Vegeta and her stripped the baby's soiled clothes and diaper off and she tested the water to make sure it wasn't too hot or too cold. As soon as Bra was in the warm water she began to laugh and splash them. "I don't think she likes the way I dress.might embarrass her friends and family."  
  
"How about this one?" Toshi snapped out it and turned to look at something Bulma was holding up for her inspection, she looked and made a face, "Oh, come on, Toshi! You haven't liked anything I've picked out!"  
  
She'd been thinking about the other day, she knew, and recalling Vegeta and her giving a very dirty Bra a bath in the kitchen sink and she knew that her mind wasn't all focused on Bulma and her shopping spree like the other woman would have liked.  
  
"It's just." She began, looking for a nice way to say that Bulma's taste in clothes were more the highschool slut look, "We have such different tastes." She finished lamely, but she picked out a dark green dress with little ivy stitching along the lowcut neck-line that she knew she's never in a million years wear, but she smiled and showed it to Bulma, who, of course, loved it, "Now can we go home? I hate the mall."  
  
I want to see how Mara's doing, too. I haven't really spoken to her much since we arrived her and only saw her brieftly a few days ago when that little girl with the wings showed up. Toshi thought to herself as she followed Bulma to the checkout line, the crush of humanity all around her was really beginning to get to her. She couldn't wait to get out of there.  
  
She had the urge to just take off flying as soon as they'd exited the store but grit her teeth and knew she'd have to restrain herself if she wanted there to be even a fraction of peace in the house between her, Vegeta and Bulma.  
  
"Is this all, Ma'am?" The short, pudgy clerk was saying, not looking up, as she rang up their selections. Bulma nodded and told the clerk that she'd probably be back soon as she handed her her platinum credit card. "Thank you, You have a good day!"  
  
~*~*~  
  
She'd slept on the fold out sofa that the woman, Chi Chi, she remembered her name as was proud of herself, had made up with fresh sheets and pillows that smelled like honeysuckle. Chi Chi herself kinda smelled like honeysuckle, she'd noticed when the woman had hugged her upon hearing her story of how she came to be stranded on their world.  
  
Aubria yawned and stretched, she knew she'd been asleep for a long time. She's heard Chi Chi earlier on the phone with someone who she could hear with her keen hearing was screaming hysterically into the phone on the other line into Chi Chi's ears. She'd eaten a little and then fell back to sleep. She heard Goku tell Chi Chi it was probably jet lag and that she'd come out of it soon and not to worry.  
  
The sunset through the windows of the small bedroom Chi Chi had put her in was bright to her sensitive eyes and she turned away from the sight. She could hear people talking from down the hall and into the kitchen and wondered what was going on. She was still getting used to this place, and her heart ached with homesickness but she knew there was nothing she could do but accept that fate had placed her here.  
  
So much for prophecies, she thought bitterly. How could she be the chosen one born to save her people if she ended up stranded on another planet?! She replayed the ancient chant in her mind:  
  
Child whose hair is silver-blue  
  
Child whose innocence is trusting and true  
  
Child whose wings are blue and gold Child whose heart is strong and bold  
  
She who was birthed outside in the grass She who is the one to last She who's mother bled and tore She who shall lead us onto war  
  
But I don't want to fight! I don't even know how! She cried in her mind as the last echoes of the ancient words told to her by her parents, whose parents had told them and so on and so forth.  
  
It didn't help matters that she'd been born under a full and pregnant moon outside in the grass during one of her mother's random nature wandering. Even though her father had begged her to leave off her walks until after the baby was safely born, her mother didn't listen. She had rarely ever listened to anyone about anything and did what she pleased.  
  
Aubria touched her hair, knowing that it's silvery blue color and her blue and gold wings, colors which had never before been seen together on the wings of any of her people, were the things which had pretty much sintched it for her.  
  
It's so stupid! She pounded the bed with her fists, the hateful little rhyme would not leave her! I can't be the one to lead my people into battle if I'm not even there! Maybe the prophecy wasn't really meant for me, She thought, smiling, liking that notion very much, Yes, of course! It was a mix up and now that she was away the true chosen one could be born. But the more she thought of it, the more she had the feeling that her idea was dead wrong.  
  
There was a knock on the door, "Aubria?" Goku's voice through the keyhole, he was yelling but he needn't have bothered, she had heard his approach from down the hall, "Dinner's ready if you're hungry!"  
  
She winced at the loudness of Goku's voice and nodded, forgetting he couldn't see her, and said; "Sure, Thanks, Goku, I'll be right there!"  
  
"Better hurry or all the food'll be gone!" Goku said, sounding happy, but then, Goku normally sounded happy, "My sons are here visiting!"  
  
"Hey, Dad!" She heard someone shout, "Who are you talking to?"  
  
"Yeah, who's in there?" She heard someone else ask, and sighed, it seemed that she would be meeting more of these strange wingless ones who could fly in this oddly heavy world. She felt her stomach growl and hoped the food wasn't all gone by the time she made it to the kitchen. 


	13. Dinner Time!

A/N: If the childrens' ages seem a bit.off.I apologize profusely. Other than that, I hope you are enjoying this.  
  
By the time Aubria made it to the kitchen the food was nearly half gone. She looked around at the unfamilair faces, uncertain how to address them. She did not of the customs of this new world and feared offending any one. She simply stood there, her beautifully large blue and gold butterfly wings half-closed against her back and nearly hidden by her long, soft blue- silver hair.  
  
She was dressed in a long, loose-fitting azure gown with pretty little sequins all over it that the woman, Chi Chi had given her. She's said it had been a christmas gift from a friend but that she'd never worn it so it was almost brand new. Aubria had thanked her and then used the dagger she carried in her boot-shealth to cut a large enough hole in the back for her wings to fit through.  
  
She clasped her hands in front of herself and looked waited for instruction. Even as young as she was.six turns of the seasons actually.she had been taught good manners by her mother and struggled to remember what she'd learned. For once she regretted daydreaming during her mother's lessons in decorum.  
  
Thankfully someone must have seen her plight and came to her rescue. "You must be Aubria!" The smaller boy said and stood up, grinning, "Hi! I'm Goten, this is my brother, Gohan."  
  
Aubria smiled warmly at the boy and his older brother.  
  
"Go on dear," She heard Chi Chi behind her, laying a calming hand on her shoulder, "You're dinner will get cold."  
  
"Oh, that's all right!" Aubria smiled at her, "I only eat fruits and vegetables anyway. My people can't handle food made from animal flesh." She gave a little shudder at the thought and nodded in releaf when Chi Chi told her that she'd made a huge tossed salad.  
  
Goku had sat down next to Chi Chi at the table. Their sons were on either side of their parents and Aubria, their guest, sat at the end. She didn't mind. She ate her salad in silence and drank the water Chi Chi had given her while half-listening to the conversation floating around her.  
  
".Videl is due any day now, Dad!" Gohan was saying, "The doctor says she's doing fine."  
  
"Glad to hear it!" Goku said, patting his wife on the shoulder, "Hear that, honey, soon we'll be grandparents!"  
  
Chi Chi smiled and said something along the lines of, "It's about time!"  
  
"Hello!" A voice rang out from the other end of the house, "Anybody home!"  
  
"Bulma!" Chi Chi cried, standing up, "In here! We're just eating." She stopped as Bulma approached, Toshi behind her holding her infant daughter; Bra.  
  
"Hey! She looks just like." Goten started, pointing at Toshi.  
  
"Vegeta!" Gohan finished for him, his eyebrow so high they looked lost in his hair, "Like a photo negative of him, at least."  
  
"Well, that and she's a girl," Goten said, shaking his head, "Wow! It's uncanny!"  
  
Toshi shifted Bra on her hip and felt her cheek flush. She didn't know how to handle the situation so she did the only thing that seemed to feel right. She glared at them all until they turned back to their food. She handed Bra to Bulma and stood off to one side. She hated the outfit she was wearing. Bulma had picked it out for her at the mall on their shopping spree today and she absolutely abhored it. It was a hot pink two piece number that showed way to much cleavage up front and way too much leg below.  
  
She was constantly trying to pull the too tight little skirt down over her shapely legs or the neckline up farther. She knew she had to look absolutely silly in it, but Bulma had insisted she wear it and she didn't want to make waves so hadn't quarrelled about it.  
  
"What in the world have you got on, dear?!" Chi Chi asked her, then she looked at Bulma and tsked softly, "Have you no shame, Bulma? Forcing this poor girl to walk around looking like a."  
  
"Don't even finish that thought!" Bulma said, holding her finger out towards Chi Chi, "I'll have you know, that outfit was extremely expensive!"  
  
"Well, I think she looks great!" Goten said, "Too bad I all ready have a girlfriend."  
  
"Yeah, She looks hot!" Gohan said, "Too bad I'm married."  
  
"You boys hush and mind your manners!" Chi Chi scolded them and turned back to Bulma and Toshi, "You can go change into something of mine, dear, if your uncomfortable."  
  
"No way!" Bulma cried, "I paid good money for that outfit for her to wear and she's gonna wear it or so help me.!"  
  
Toshi stood there, her head going from one voice to the other, as the women yelled back and forth and little Bra began to wail. She felt like she was watching a tennis match with the way her head was whipping back and forth between the two. Finally, her temper would not stay down where she'd been shoving and pushing it and she just exploded on them without warning.  
  
"Enough!" She shouted, her face red and her hands balled into fists at her side, "Stop all this bickering! You two are giving me a splitting migraine! I want to change clothes and Bulma, don't you dare even think of telling me what I can or can't wear.or even do for that matter! All of you! Just shut up and leave me alone!"  
  
With her breasts heaving under the tight-fitting garment, Toshi knew she must have made quite a spectacle of herself. She didn't hear the front door open and close just before the last words of her sudden outburst were out of her mouth and she turned and ran from the room.  
  
Aubria's ears hurt now, she rubbed them with her hands but the stinging sound of the white-haired girl's voice still rang through them. She looked up and saw someone else enter the room. It was a man, but he had hair like the girl, only very dark. She wondered, breifly, if they were related.  
  
"What was that all about?" Vegeta asked Bulma as she handed Bra to him, "Did my little look-a-like give you a hard time, Bulma?"  
  
"As if you have to ask!" Bulma said, glowering, "That girl is gonna be nothing but trouble! Mark my words! Trouble!"  
  
"At least she stood up for herself." Vegeta smirked, "I was almost starting to think never would."  
  
"You.you sound like your proud of her!" Bulma said, between clentched teeth, "You hardly know her!"  
  
"I know enough to realize that she's as much a part of me as the nose on my face," Vegeta said, "Or my fist.or my strength.Of course I'm proud of her, why shoudn't I be?"  
  
"I've tried to be nice to her," Bulma sighed, "But I don't know any more."  
  
"You haven't tried to be nice, Bulma," Vegeta accused, pointing at her, "You just used her as another of your pet projects. 'I'll take the girl shopping and give her make-over and afterwards she'll be so enthralled with me that she'll do anything I say.!'"  
  
"I never said that!" Bulma said, her cheeks red, her blue eyes blazing, "I took her shopping out of the kindness of my heart.which is more than can said for you her so-called twin-soul!"  
  
"You took her shopping so that the clothes she had been wearing, which were battle torn and bloody, wouldn't embarrass your family!" Vegeta accused, seeing Bulma grow even more angry with every word that passed between them. Finally, as if she couldn't stand it anymore, Chi Chi brought everything to a sudden, screeching halt.  
  
"SHUTUP!!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. Poor Aubria's ears were nearly deaf by now and she kept sticking her finger into them and wiggling it, trying to get them to start working again.  
  
Bulma and Vegeta looked at Chi Chi, stunned into silence, even little Bra had quited her wails and was now just hiccuping against her father's chest, one tiny fist shoved into her mouth. "If you want to scream at each other, please do it some place else! As you can see we are trying to have our dinner and we have a guest over tonight and frankly, you are embarrassing me to no end!"  
  
Vegeta's face became hard and his eyes narrowed, he stalked over to Chi Chi and looked down at her; "No woman yells at me like that and gets away with it.!" Before he could do anything, for Chi Chi had glared right back at him, nearly ready to toss her apron aside and fling herself at him in a rage, Goku stood up from the table and stepped between his wife and Vegeta.  
  
"Just calm down!" Goku said, trying to sheild Chi Chi and keep her from doing something stupid.like attacking Vegeta when he was upset and ending up getting killed. "Vegeta, why don't you and I go out and train for awhile. I'm done eating anyway. Gohan, Goten, why don't you two join us, okay?"  
  
"Sure Dad!" The boys said at the same time and followed their father outside.  
  
After a few tense moments, Bulma finally spoke.  
  
"I think we need to go home, Chi Chi." She said, not looking at her friend, but at her husband, "I think we need to go home and talk."  
  
"I'll get Toshi." Vegeta began but Bulma shook her head, "But."  
  
"She'll be all right here for now," Chi Chi said, "You two need some time to yourselves. I'll take care of the baby for you too."  
  
Vegeta handed her his daughter, his anger at her gone as quickly as it had come, he thanked her with a nod and turned back to his mate. "I think your right, Bulma. Come on."  
  
Bulma waved to Chi Chi on the way out. "Thank you so much, Chi Chi! I'll call you later!"  
  
Aubria lowered her head and kept shoving lettuce into her mouth. She was thankful that no one really seemed to notice her. Except, just then, Toshi came back into the room, having changed into something more comforable, one of Chi Chi's modest dresses that made it much easier to walk and breath, saw Aubria sitting there and approached her.  
  
"Who are you?" She asked, as Aubria looked up with her mouth full of lettuce, "I don't remember seeing you in the mirror.?"  
  
"Mirror?" 


	14. Toshi's Gut Feeling

"Oh, that's right!" Toshi said, slapping her forehead, "You came out of that pod-like thing a few days ago! Whew! I could feel your energy clear over from Vegeta and Bulma's place! How could I have forgotten?!"  
  
Aubria nodded, munching on a tomato slice. Toshi looked down at her and shook her head in bemusement. "Your so little.but there is something special about you. Why else would we all be feeling such power from you?"  
  
Aubria didn't answer, she merely looked at the older girl, her large hazel eyes blinking every few moments. Toshi found it a little unnerving to be stared at this way. She shifted her weight onto one foot and then the other, waiting for the child to say something, anything.  
  
"Toshi!" She heard Chi Chi call from the other room and Bra began to cry, "Could you come and help me, please, dear?"  
  
"Be right there!" She called and then said to the little winged child, "I'm not done with you, Butterfly, I'm going to find out what you're all about."  
  
Aubria shivered inwardly, not at Toshi's words but at her tone of voice. She knew that one would not stop until she gained exactly what she was after, no matter what the cost. She turned back to her salad and ate in silence. This strange world and it's even stranger people made her nervous and homesick all at the same time. She swallowed back tears with another slice of tomato.  
  
~*~*~  
  
Toshi found Chi Chi in her and Goku's bedroom, little Bra was laying on the bed, sans diaper and Chi Chi was struggling to place a new one on the wriggling child. She had baby powder in her dark hair and smelled of baby lotion and feces. Toshi wrinkled her nose and began to help Chi Chi with the baby.  
  
"Ugh!" She cried as she saw the dirty diaper before Chi Chi had rolled it up, "I never knew they crapped that much! Remind me never to have kids!"  
  
Chi Chi laughed and tossed the soiled diaper into the trash bin to be taken out at the end of the day when she went through the house and took out all the garabage, "It's not so bad, Toshi, the pros of having children far outweigh the cons."  
  
She chucked little Bra under her chin and the child giggled. She placed her on the floor and like a shot she was off crawling and exploring. Chi Chi didn't worry, her house was still baby-proofed from when Goten was little. Besides, being part Saiyan, she knew the child was more sturdy than a normal human infant. She could take her lumps and laugh about it, that was a certainty.  
  
"I wonder where the little girl with the wings came from." Toshi asked the air as they cleaned up the mess, "There is something odd about her."  
  
"You mean besides the hair and wings?" Chi Chi looked at ther askance and Toshi shook her head, not even hearing the uncharacteristic sarcasm.  
  
"No, I mean, something more." Toshi chewed on her bottom lip, deep in thought, "I think there's a reason she came here."  
  
"How can that be?" Chi Chi asked, "Goku told me that her escape pod pretty much crashed here by accident.we were just the closest planet to her family's ship when it."  
  
"I don't know." Toshi said, "Maybe your right. I just have a feeling is all."  
  
Chi Chi grew silent, thinking for a while as Toshi finished putting stuff away and then looked up, smiled and said that she needed to go to the store to pick up something for dinner. "We eat very large meals here." She said by way of explaination, "Nothing can compare to a Saiyan's apitite!"  
  
Toshi chuckled and offered to stay with the little ones until she returned. "Thank you, dear. I won't be gone long."  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Hey, Butterfly!" Toshi found the girl in the spare bedroom struggling to make up the fold-out hide-a-bed as nicely as Chi Chi would have done, "What's up?"  
  
Aubria looked at her and then towards the ceiling, clearly puzzled by such a question. "The ceiling is up.I guess.and outside, the sky and some clouds. I saw a few birds flying by earlier when I looked out the."  
  
Toshi laughed and shook her head, "No, silly! I mean 'what's going on?' 'How are you?'"  
  
"Oh, Fine, I guess." Aubria said, shoving her silvery-blue hair out of her too-large eyes, She continued in a small voice; "I don't know.I miss my own bed."  
  
Toshi didn't bother with any coddling. She moved the child out of her way and finished making up the bed then she sat down on the end and said; "Why are you here? Really?"  
  
"I.I.crashed here." Aubria looked frightened, like a cornered rabbit and Toshi felt a little ashamed of her behaviour. She's just a stupid kid, for crying out loud! She scolded herself, but just glared at Aubria, waiting for her to say more.  
  
"I don't know why I'm here!" She cried at last, tears struggling to stay beneath her lids, she blinked and one coursed a path down her cheek and off her chin, "It was an accident!"  
  
"Sure, Butterfly." Toshi folded her arms and stared at her, "My gut tells me you're not lying but."  
  
"I'm not!" She cried, "Why won't you believe me!"  
  
"Shh!" Toshi said to her, "Calm down, okay? I never said I didn't believe you. It's just.I think." "Yes?" Aubria swiped at her tears, Stupid to cry, She said to herself, Stupid! Stupid!  
  
"I think there was a reason you crashed here on this particular planet," Toshi said, "In this particular area."  
  
"Maybe it has something to do with the prophecy?" Aubria whispered, not looking at Toshi, just at her folded hands in her lap as she sat next to her, "Do you think?"  
  
"What is this prophecy business?" Toshi asked, "Can you explain it to me so I'll understand."  
  
"Umm.There's a rhyme.like this," She said, "Child whose hair is silver-blue  
  
  
  
  
  
Child whose innocence is trusting and true  
  
Child whose wings are blue and gold Child whose heart is strong and bold  
  
She who was birthed outside in the grass She who is the one to last She who's mother bled and tore She who shall lead us onto war"  
  
Toshi listened but shook her head. Aubria seemed to realize that she wasn't clear enough with Toshi so she asked; "Can I show you.I mean.so that you can see what it means?"  
  
Toshi nodded and the little girl knelt on the bed beside her, flinging her small arms around her neck and pressed her forehead against Toshi's. Toshi gasped and fought not to pull away as the first touch of the alien mind to her's. She felt somewhat like the first time she and Vegeta became mentally connected only this was more pure, more.innocent.  
  
The images to flood into her mind were far from innocent, however and they made Toshi feel things she'd never felt before. Especially the images of beings like Aubria armored and weaponed and heading out to battle and then, the aftershock, the fighting, the dying.the wounded.but most of all.the glory. She felt her blood sing within her and she wanted to be a part of that victory.however imaginary it was now, being lodged into a child's mind.  
  
She breathed deeply as Aubria let go of her, took her face from her's and sat back, waiting.  
  
"Y-you.were meant to."  
  
" 'To lead onto war'" Aubria nodded, reciting part of the prophecy, "But I don't even know how to fight!" She shuddered, "Just the thought of anyone inflicting deliberate harm."  
  
"Hmm." Toshi said, "I think we need to ask someone wiser than us for advice."  
  
She thought about using the mirror to talk to her grandmothers.but she knew that would have taken a lot of the older women to speak with her that way and didn't want to risk their health.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"I don't know." Toshi said, "Maybe Chi Chi knows someone who could help. We have to wait for her to get back from the store though."  
  
Toshi saw the baby from the corner of her eye crawling into the room and stood up, walked over to her and scooped her up. "Well, how about you come and watch t.v. with Bra and me until Chi Chi comes back?"  
  
"What's a t.v.?" Aubria asked, and Toshi laughed, Bra giggled because she thought grown ups looked funny when they laughed, "And why do we have to watch it?"  
  
"You'll see," Toshi said, and then to the baby, "Isn't she a silly little Butterfly, Bra?" 


	15. Through Narrowed Eyes

Mara sighed. She floated in the air next to Piccolo, long legs folded beneath her, her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She sighed again, louder, looking askance at her twin-soul. She gritted her teeth and sighed again. Finally, unable to concentrate, Piccolo opened one eye, looked over at her in annoyance.  
  
"Must you keep doing that?" He asked as she shifted in place, "Your making it very hard to concentrate."  
  
"I can't help it!" She said, looking up, "I've never been so bored in my entire life!"  
  
"You need to center yourself." He said, looking across the way at the river they could barely glimpse through the trees, a sparkle of silver glint of the sun off the ripples, If you stared to long you could get very dizzy, "Meditate."  
  
"That's what we've been doing for the last five hours, Piccolo!" Mara said, "Don't you think this is pretty much overkill? I want to do something different.besides, my legs are getting cramped.!"  
  
With that, Mara stood up and lowered herself to the ground. As her feet touched the earth she thought of something. "I want to go visit Toshi and Vegeta.I wonder how she'd doing."  
  
"She's not with him." Piccolo said, his other eye open as well now, "Can you feel it? Their ki is much weaker when they are apart."  
  
She cocked her head to one side, waited, listened and felt all around her. Opening all her senses. Finally she grinned and exclaimed; "I do feel it! Your right! But I can feel all kinds of things!"  
  
"Yes, be careful." Piccolo cautioned, "There are a lot of living creatures with energy of their own around and you could be overloaded with input if you."  
  
Suddenly Mara grabbed her head and cried out. It felt like a thousand bolts of lightning crashed into her brain at once. The sensation was horrifing! She automatically began building up mental walls to block the effect of sensing all the ki in the area and slowly raised her head, her dark hair hanging like a green curtain over her eyes.  
  
"Whew!" She said, her voice barely above a whisper, "Overload is right! That hurt like hell!"  
  
"Just focus on whoever you're trying to sense and block out the others," He advised, nodding.  
  
"Thanks." She said, and saw him close his eyes once more, preparing to go back to his meditation. She reached up and yanked on his cape, jerking him out of his near-reverie, "Not so fast! You're coming with me!"  
  
"Mara!" He said, "I don't have time to."  
  
"Oh come on!" She laughed, still holding two ends of his cape in her hands, looking up at him, "You had five hours to fill by doing absolutely nothing."  
  
"Meditating!"  
  
".Nothing," She went on as if he hadn't spoken, "So don't tell me you don't have time to go visit a friend! Come on!"  
  
Piccolo sighed, but decided to accompany her. How could he not when she was so persausive.  
  
"Besides," She said, "You need to see people once in a while."  
  
"I like being alone."  
  
"Your not alone," She reminded him, "I'm with you, now."  
  
He actually smiled at that! She reached over in mid flight and grabbed his hand, holding it tightly in her own. "She's over at Goku's." Piccolo said out of the blue and Mara, knowing what he meant, just nodded.  
  
They arrived in record time and landed softly together on the patio outside the back door. Piccolo didn't bother with knocking on the door, he simply placed two fingers to his brow and teleported himself inside. Mara took the more mundane route. She opened the door and walked in.  
  
"Toshi!" Mara cried, her hands cupping her mouth as she shouted for her friend, "Toshi! Where are you, girl!?"  
  
"You sound like you calling a dog." Piccolo observed, "Just sense where she is!"  
  
"It's more fun this way," She said, and got ready to yell again. At which Toshi appeared in the doorway to the living room and said; "Shut up! Dammit! I just got Bra down for a nap! Chi Chi hasn't gotten back from the store and the boys are out training or whatever.If you wake her up, Mara, I swear I'll kill you and feed your innards to my cat!"  
  
"You don't have a cat." Mara said, Toshi shook her head, and Mara caught sight of something glittering behind her, "Oh! Aubria's here! That explains the terribly powerful ki I sensed here as we approuched! How are ya, Little one?"  
  
Aubria was sitting on the sofa, her legs tucked under her and her wings folded against her back. She smiled and waved before turning back to the television set which Toshi had put on low volume for the girl, who's ears were keen anyhow, too watch. She seemed enthralled by it. Mara looked at Toshi with questioning eyes.  
  
"She'd never seen a t.v. before." Toshi shrugged, "I had no choice but to remedy the situation."  
  
"With her capabilities she should be training," Piccolo said sternly, "Not wasting her time with television!"  
  
"She doesn't want to learn to fight." Toshi told them, as Aubria pretended not to hear them talk about as if she weren't there and couldn't hear them, "But there is this prophecy, see, from her planet about a girl who will be born that will lead them onto war."  
  
"But, then." Mara began but her friend interrupted her;  
  
"She can't even stand to see others' fight." She went on, "She told me that the very thought of anyone inflicting purposeful harm on another was unthinkable to her."  
  
"So how is she suppose to be able to lead her people onto war?" Piccolo mused, as Aubria shifted in her seat, "Very strange." "Maybe it means when she grows up." Mara offered but one look at the gentle little girl and she knew that couldn't be true. She would not change her mind or her ways once she was of full size, somehow Mara just knew this, though she had no idea how she knew.  
  
"I've already gone through my larval stage," Aubria offered, finally joining the conversation, "I gained my wings during my sleeptime, and I have one more sleeptime coming up in which I'll get bigger and gain my adult wings."  
  
"Will they look the same as the ones you have now, Butterfly?" Toshi asked, curious. She didn't know this about the little sprite, "Or will they be different?"  
  
"Only bigger," Aubria said, "Adult sized wings are much bigger than child sized ones."  
  
"I would think so," Mara said, "Still, this doesn't answer the question of how you can doing anything war-like if you hate the very idea of combat."  
  
"Some prophecies must be looked at through narrowed eyes." They all turned to see Chi Chi standing there, gorchery bags in her arms, her purse over her shoulder and her hair a mess.  
  
It looked like she'd just been run through the ringer and hung out to dry, but she smiled as she placed the sacks on the table and counter before turning back to them; "You can't take them literally. Perhaps it won't even be Aubria who will lead them to war.it may be an offspring of her's or someone from a future generation."  
  
"I never thought of that!" Aubria cried, coming through the archway to help Chi Chi with the gorcheries, "Thank you so much!"  
  
"Anytime, dear." Chi Chi said in her normal motherly tone, "The bananas go in the hanging basket over the sink." 


	16. A Saiyan's Love

"She really is a part of you, Vegeta?" Bulma asked in a small voice, too small to be coming from her. She sat on the edge of their bed, looking at her hands folded in her lap. Vegeta stood in front of her, dark eyes intense and focused on her downcast head. He secretly admired her toned and firm body beneath the surface of his thoughts.  
  
But now was not the time for such mental wanderings, he reminded himself as he reached over and lifted his wife's chin with a finger, looking into her beautiful eyes, Besides if things go well between us now.tonight might mean more than just using my imagination.  
  
"You know the answer to that all ready, Bulma." He said slowly, "It was explained to you."  
  
"Yes, I know and I am trying so hard to accept it but." Bulma looked away with her eyes but Vegeta would not have that and narrowed his eyes a tad until she looked back, "But.I feel .so.so.inadequate. I mean, she is your twin-soul! She has a part of you that I never will and it makes so."  
  
"Frustrated?" He offered, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"Pissed off!" She finished, her eyes shooting daggers at him, "I can never have of you what she does.and she doesn't even seem to appreicate it!"  
  
"I know something you have of me that she doesn't, Bulma," He said, smiling at her and taking her hands to pull her up from the bed and into his arms, "My heart. Only one female can lay claim to that part of me.among other.parts.and I am just about to kiss her."  
  
Bulma surrendered to his embrace and felt all at once all her misgivings about Toshi and Vegeta and herself slip away in one breathtaking, earthshattering kiss. Afterwards she swooned on her feet and he backed her up towards the bed, kissing the side her neck, pausing to lick softly the area behind her earlobs and smiling against the salty-sweetness of her skin as she shivered and grasped his shoulders to pull him closer.  
  
"This time there will be no interruptions." He said firmly as he nibbled on her earlob and slipped one hand under her blouse, cupping her rounded breast and squeezing gently, tweaking the nipple between thumb and forefinger, marveling at how quickly it hardened under his touch.  
  
She tossed her head back and whimpered and he pulled her blouse apart, it was an azure blue one that was made from pure silk she had bought last week with faux-ivory buttons running down the front, not caring in the least that he just ruined a five hundred dollar blouse!  
  
"I've always liked the way your skin feels." He murmered against her ear, his breath tickling it and making her squirm, he reached under the pink miniskirt she had chosen to wear that day and felt her moistness through the material of her panties. She moaned as she lay backwards on the bed, her feet still on the floor. Vegeta quickly remedied that by lifting her up easily and cradling her against his powerful chest for a moment before turning her around so that she lay on the bed properly.  
  
He paused for a moment, removed his shirt quickly and looked down at her for a moment, savoring the sight of her and the ache that was more pleasure than agony in his nether regions just gazing upon her willing beauty always gave him. She opened her eyes and gazed back at him, her lips curled upwards ever so slightly, her eyes hooded with desire, silently beckoning him.  
  
Vegeta needed no other encouragement. With a sound deep in his throat that was more a growl than anything, he sat down next to her and scooped her up into his arms, tasting her mouth once more as his hands, as if they had wills of their own, sought to explore every nook and cranny of Bulma's luscious body. She cried out in pleasure as he found her most sensitive area and carefully, methodically, began to stroke the tiny bud with his fingers as he licked and nibbled his way downward, sucking briefly on a nipple just feel it harden once more within his mouth, finally he reached the hollow of her concave stomach and licked her cute little belly button. She was an innie, he knew, but it was still so damned cute.  
  
Not to mention sexy as hell. He thought as he spread her legs a little with a soft nudging at her thighs and pulled her panties, pink, he noticed, to match the skirt, down over her legs and off her feet. He tossed them away and turned back to his wife, who lay writhing in antisipation of what he was about to do next. With Vegeta she could never be quite certain. Knowing him, he could just get her all hot and bothered and then get up and leave her there as a punishment for some unknown crime she commited against him and his pride.  
  
Bulma didn't know how he curbed himself when he did such things because she knew he got even hotter than her during their moments of nearly crazed, passionate foreplay, but she suspected he found a way to find a release just as she had. A shoebox stuffed way back in her closet was kept for just such an emergency.  
  
But, as his tongue played around her delicate bud betwixt her parted thighs the blue haired beauty knew that her shoebox toys would stay hidden for at least this one day.  
  
Hours, or was it days? Bulma couldn't rightly be certain of anything at the moment, much less how much time had elapsed, she lay with her body naked and gleaming with sweat, pressed up against her husband's. He lay on his back, also sans clothing, just a thin sheet draped over their waists and her head resting on his chest as his arm held her close. He was breathing deeply so she knew he'd fallen asleep.  
  
Bulma closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of closeness after sex always brought her with her husband. Her shoulder near her neck hurt a little where he'd bitten through the skin at the moment of their mutual climax, but it was a good hurt. It reminded her she was still his and that he wanted no other woman but her.  
  
Bulma smiled to herself and drifted off to sleep. 


	17. An Unexpected Stolen Moment

Toshi was washing dishes at the sink, she'd gone back over to Vegeta and Bulma's place after she'd eaten dinner at the Son resendence. She didn't like housework. In fact she darn right hated it. But she was a guest and she didn't want anyone to call her lazy, she she'd donned an apron and dishtowel and went at it, cleaning up the mess of dishes that Bulma had failed to get to throughout most of the day. She figured the woman enjoyed housework even less than she.  
  
Hmm, she thought as she dunked a plate under the now lukewarm dishwater and scrubbed at it with the srubby sponge she'd found beneath the sink, Looks like Ms. Blue and I may have at least two things in common.who'd a ever thunk it? She giggled to herself and continued the mundane chore. However, her keen hearing picked up someone entering the room on cat's feet.  
  
She sensed his thoughts first, his presence second. He's thinking about Bulma, she mused, and felt her face flush as recent images flickered from his mind across, unknowningly, to her's. She closed herself to him, she didn't need to see what goes on between him and Bulma behind closed.and hopefully locked!.doors. She didn't turn but felt and heard him open the fridge, gaze inside for several moment.  
  
"Are you hungry?" She asked and he turned to her, looking at her as if he'd not known she was in the room until she spoke, which would have been insane, right? She was right in front of him, submerging her hands in gross dishwater doing a chore she did not enjoy in the slightest. What she'd give to just leave for a while.she could see the night sky, filled with stars, outside the small kitchen window above the sink and those sparkling wonders seemed to beckon her to come outside and see how close she get to touching them.  
  
She sighed and Vegeta finally answered her; "Not really. I just thought I was."  
  
"Yeah, I know what you mean." Before he could ask her what she meant by that, Toshi had dried and put away the last dish, drained the water and wiped her hands on her jeans. A pair of Bulma's, he noted, light blue with a tie dye print. She slipped the apron off and he noticed she also wore a very skimpy belly shirt with the words 'Hot Stuff' written across it in sparkling letters. Another one of Bulma's, he'd seen her wear it on occation.  
  
"Where are you going?" He asked when he saw her putting on a jacket and heading for the front door. He followed behind.  
  
"Out," She said, "I can't stay here." She turned to him and what he saw in her eyes, looked like something he'd seen before.in the mirror. "I can't breathe." With that, she slammed the door closed behind her and looked up. After half a second of hesitation, she took to the air and vanished in moments into the velvet blackness.  
  
Vegeta stood on the doorstep, gazing upwards to the spot he'd last seen Toshi's figure before she disapeared into the night sky. He opened his senses and focused on locating her. Ah! He exclaimed to himself a few moments later, There she is. He left his mate snoring her head off in their bed and lifted himself from the ground. Feeling a rush of wind caress his hair, he took off in the direction he knew Toshi had gone.  
  
She felt him behind her and slowed her pace. She smiled, happy that he'd decided to join her. She hadn't felt right about inviting him, but if he wished to come of his own accord, she couldn't very well stop him, could she? She reached out when he was flying beside her and took his hand. "There's so much to see and feel." She mused, looking down and around, "Up here.You must love flying."  
  
He shrugged, "I've never really stopped to think about it," He said, "It's just something I do, like walking or fighting."  
  
She didn't know any other way to show him what she was feeling other than to allow him to see and feel for himself. She opened up her mind and drew on the connection they shared. She flooded his mind and senses with all that she was experiencing within and without since she'd first learned to fly and tonight. He paused in midflight and cried out with the sensations she was sharing. Because their minds were stilll linked, she felt what he felt and opened her mouth in a silent exclaimation.  
  
"I'm sorry." She said, letting go of his hand, feeling ashamed, "I shouldn't have."  
  
"No." He said, shaking his head, reaching out for her again, "It wasn't you, really, I.umm.is that how you really feel?"  
  
She looked at him and nodded.  
  
He shook his head again and sighed, "I can't be your twin-soul, Toshi. You see and feel much more than I ever could."  
  
She touched his face with the back of hand, gently, almost as if she hadn't touched him at all, "Don't be silly, Vegeta," She said, but not mockingly, "You've always seen and felt more deeply than those around you."  
  
He did not know what had come over him, maybe it was the night air, so rich and filled with unspoken promised. Maybe it was something in her eyes, as she looked at him with such open admiration. Maybe he was just as much of an idiot as Kakkorat. He didn't know.  
  
Toshi found herself miles above any ground with Vegeta's strong arms about her waist, drawing her closer. Before she could protest, his mouth was crushing her's in an almost violent, needful kiss. She whimpered and dug her fingers through his hair, she didn't know how to answer that need but by giving whatever she could of herself.  
  
Vegeta had not forgotten the one he was bonded to. He did not forget about Bulma. He felt the stirrings of guilt and told himself that this wasn't right, that he should let her go and go back to his house, crawl in bed with his mate and hold her tight against him until his heart stopped pouding in his ears and the sun rose once more.  
  
But he could not let her go. Toshi was just as much a part of him as his saiyan blood.and she shared his blood.he could feel her body responding in a way that he'd never been able to get Bulma's to. He growled against Toshi's throat and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her backwards to expose her breasts to his veiw. Instead of crying out or protesting at the rough treatment, the way Bulma would have done and left him wanting more out the experience, Toshi seemed to purr and welcome his attentions in such a manner. He bit her lightly on her breast, just above the nipple and she shivered in rapture, shoving herself as close to his mouth as she could.  
  
"We.shouldn't." Toshi gasped, her whole body seemed on fire. It was as if she'd been dying of thirst but did not realize it until she held the glass of water before her. Vegeta was that glass of water. She wanted him like she'd never wanted anything else in her life. She fairly shook with need. However, she knew what was right and what was wrong. "This isn't right."  
  
"I know," He said in a whisper against her exposed skin, the cool night air had worked to harden her beautiful pink nipples even more than his touch had, "I know, Toshi.I just can't help it."  
  
This is wrong! She thought even as she sighed in delight as his hands traveled the length of her body, pausing to pay homage at her most secret of places. She cried out in wonder as she felt his teeth against her throat as his hands undie the button of her jeans and slipped his hand beneath the waitband, swiftly diving downward to feel the wetness of her panties with the palm of his hand.  
  
I know this is wrong, Toshi thought, as she dug her fingernails into his shoulders and shuddered with ecstasy, But I don't have the power to stop it.  
  
Neither do I, He spoke in her mind, answering her un-question, she lifted his face with a finger beneath his chin and kissed him in the way he had kissed her, moments.or was it years? It was hard to tell.ago. I've never felt so.  
  
She didn't wait for him to finish the thought. She knew if either one of them stopped to really think about what they were doing, they would face a problem that neither one of them were strong enough to handle. Better not to think at all. Just feel. She knew that they would have this one night only.  
  
In the light of day, he'd return to being the faithful mate of Bulma and she would go back to being the helpful houseguest and, yes, his twin-soul. However it may hurt to be around each other and never speak of this one night between them, the both knew in their hearts that they would have to let it go.  
  
But tonight, Toshi had no intention of letting anything go. Least of all, him. 


	18. Morning Bliss

Piccolo was getting more than a tad bit tired of that girl who looked so much like him it was uncanny. She was always around, even when he was training, either watching him from a not-so-far away distance, or up close and nearly in his lap! He liked her, he really honestly did, and enjoyed her company and the special bond they seemed to share.  
  
But for Kami's sake! He couldn't breathe! Enough was enough. He needed a little time without her before he went completely insane! Lifting himself from the ground effortlessly, trying hard not to wake her as she slept curled around a blanket he'd materialized for her due to the night being so cold, he looked towards the direction of the rising sun.  
  
She stirred and he stifled a groan, he's hoped not to wake her. He wanted a few moments to himself. To think. It seems he'd been doing a lot less of that and mostly just reacting. Reaction was good, that was true, but there had to be a little thinking involved now and then. Mara's namekian ears twitched and she opened her eyes. Piccolo looked down at her and realized, once more, how very lovely she looked, espesically bathed as she was now, in the twilight's faint light.  
  
"Going somewhere?" She sat up and yawned, then gave him a smirk that could be a twin to Vegeta's. He wondered, briefly, if she been taking lessons from him, then stopped that line of thought as it went nowhere. She'd hardly left his side since her arrival, well, save for that one night she spent babysitting at the Son resedence.  
  
There was that odd little winged child there, he'd remembered, the one they found a few nights ago when her escape pod crashed nearby. If he tried, he could sense her power level, not that he needed to try all that hard. It was like a white noise, a constant buzz at the back of his skull. It was so loud it was almost easy to ignore. If that made any sense at all!  
  
"I thought I'd go see about that girl." He said, lamely he knew, why couldn't he think about anything when around her! He's almost believe she was some kind of witch who had put a spell on him, maybe she's in cahoots with Baba, he thought and nearly chuckled, He wondered if she'd be able to even make it past all her tests. Looking at her now, it seemed highly unlikely. But he had to remind himself that she knew all that he knew, since their bonding back through the mirror, and that would have given her more than a head's up.  
  
But she wasn't going anywhere near Baba, Piccolo knew, she had no desire to be the pupil of that loud-mouthed braggart and he was glad. She folded up the blanket and started to comb out her tangled green hair with her fingers. She was getting any where with the task and was only managing to mess it up more, giving her snarls free reign of her head. She sighed in frustration and began again, silently cursing herself for leaving her comb behind.  
  
She felt him bring himself to the ground behind her. Without asking permission, he made a comb appear in his hand and lifted her long thick hair at the base with the other. She lowered her hands and relaxed. He combed the tangles from her hair with clumsly care, not wanting to pull to hard and hurt her, or damange her beauitful locks any more than was nessessary.  
  
"Your good at that." She mused, purring softly, like a feline, he almost expected her to stretch and growl.  
  
"You know stuff about me," He countered, "And I know stuff about you."  
  
"Oh?" She asked, her voice teasing, "Just what other stuff are you talking about?"  
  
"I know you like this," He said and moved her hair aside to place his mouth against the back of her neck, breathing in the scent of her, She sighed and shivered, in pleasure, he knew and gently gave the handful of hair he held a pull so that she was forced backwards into his arms, "And this." He kissed her, long and passionately, allowing their tongues to merge and play, the sensations washing all up and down their bodies like firecrackers on the fourth of July.  
  
"You're going to miss your appointment with the faery chick." She breathed when he let her go at last, she was still laying back into his embrace and felt.content.even safe. He ingored her and shook his head. He didn't care about that winged child! He'd just said that to have an excuse as to where he was going so early in the morning.  
  
But now he just couldn't remember why he'd wanted to leave her in the first place. Maybe he had been overcome with temporary insanity? The thought was amusing but he's much rather focus on another type of mystery. A sweetly compelling one.  
  
"I don't have an appointment." He growled into her throat, slipping his large, strong hands inside the neckline of her gi and feeling her heaving breasts, He watched her face as it seemed to contort with the pleasure she was feeling. No one had ever made her feel like this! She reached up and, being strong for a female, shoved his turban and weight from his head. It landed with a thud on the ground behind them. She tenderely stroked his sensative antenna and felt him shudder against her at her ministrations.  
  
Her own antenna trembled when he placed his lips over it and began to run his tongue up and down it in agonizing slowness. She felt her body heat up and a sensation build up inside her that she'd only thought could come of stimulation of another, vital part of her. She cried out and rolled over onto her back onto the ground, holding onto his dark purple gi as he removed his cape and weights effortlessly.  
  
"Mara." He paused, holding himself up on one arm and looked down into her clouded ebony-green eyes, "If you know all about me through the connection we share, than you must know that nameks are asexual. Well, I can't say all.since obviously are not lacking in the repoduction area."  
  
She silenced him with another kiss, breaking it off, she said; "Yes, I know all about it. And your right.I did not lose my.gender.when this form took me. But I want to be with you, I don't care how."  
  
Breifly he wondered why he'd even thought he'd needed a break from her. She was like sunlight and water! Too much was never enough! Though he feared after he'd been bathed in her light and drank from her well that he would be pretty much undone. The thought didn't seem to bother him as much as he'd thought it would and that, in itself, was unnerving.  
  
He seemed full of contradictions where she was concerned. He shrugged internally and took her into his arms once more. The morning changed to noon, which in turn changed to afternoon and then dusk before they had finished with each other. To Piccolo it had been much like experiencing something new and slightly forbidden and at once tantalizingly blissful. He'd not known if it was right or right, only that it had felt like nothing he'd ever felt before in his entire life! Even the feeling of powering up before a big fight could not compare.  
  
Mara, a vigin when she'd first met Piccolo and, at least in the technical sense, a virgin still, knew that she would be changed forever in ways she couldn't even begin to understand. She just sighed and entwined her sweatdrenched limbs with his, closing her eyes and they rested beneath the blazing orb in the sky out side their little cave-hollow.  
  
Had she kept her eyes open a little bit longer she'd have seen two figures in the sky heading back from where they had come at a great, frenzied speed. But she, like Piccolo beside her, had slipped into a kind of dreamless darkness, not seeing or hearing anything but the pouding of each other's hearts in their ears. 


End file.
